


Where the Ocean Is

by 09cityskylights



Series: The Manifesto of Mickey Milkovich [2]
Category: Shameless (US), gallavich - Fandom
Genre: Character Development, Escape, Fear, Follows Show Storyline!, Frustration, Fugitive, Gallavich, Gallavich Reunion, Gay male characters, Hope, Inner Perspective, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Shameless (US), Loss, Love, M/M, Mexico, Non-Tradtional Manifesto, Novella, On the Run, POV Mickey, Pain, Prison, Revelations, Risk it All, Series, Shameless, Some dark themes, Something a little different, Suicidal Themes, Waiting, graphic panic attacks, graphic sexual scenes, manifesto, season 7, severe drug/alcohol abuse, short novel, some violence, symptoms of overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-06-07
Packaged: 2018-11-01 00:37:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 25,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10910727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/09cityskylights/pseuds/09cityskylights
Summary: Part Two of The Manifesto of Mickey Milkovich Series: Where the Ocean IsUnbelievably, Mickey manages to escape from prison. As a fugitive on the run, he has only one goal: to find Ian Gallagher and escape to where the ocean is.Youtube Teaser Trailer for this fic:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKqsbnG1wiI





	1. Livin In The Fire

The dark van speeds rapidly down the abandoned road, seeming to hit every fucking rock and pothole on it as it rocks its occupants roughly at each impact.

Mickey bounces uncomfortably in the back of the van, his heart still racing from the adrenaline rush of the escape, it pumps wildly against his chest, and it’s hard to even breathe properly.

He and his cellmate have somehow, miraculously, managed to achieve the seemingly impossible task of escaping from the Cook Country Correctional, and they are now two escaped prisoners on the run.

He’s too charged to speak for several minutes to any of the van’s other occupants, which is fine, because he doesn’t get a chance to get a word in edgewise.

Damon and the two other Mexican men driving the get away van speak rapidly to each other in Spanish, loudly gesturing to each other and then out the dark windows as they argue about some unknown issue, Mickey being unfamiliar with the language.

He can’t tell if they are actually angry or just excited until his cellmate Damon slaps him on the back, hard, but with undeniable gratitude.

“This crazy motherfucker right here, he’s the one that got it done” he says proudly, adding to the two in Spanish as he cocks his head towards Mickey in amusement, “ _Mickey es un joto, escapó por su amor_ ”. 

The two men laugh at whatever the fuck Damon said, Mickey at this point not really giving a shit, and the driver doesn’t look back but nods his head, while the other passenger turns to acknowledge Mickey with appreciation.

He smiles, “We owe you man, getting Damon out. Missed this _hijo de puta_ ”.

Mickey appreciates the thanks, not needing a translation for that one. He’s pretty sure he can guess what it means, knowing Damon.

But he narrows his eyes at the owing part, “Yeah…and you do owe me. Damon told you about our deal, right?” He glances quickly from Damon to other man and then back again, with an eyebrow arched suspiciously, as the van continues to rock him unsteadily.  

The stranger puts his large hand up as if to shush Mickey’s concerns, but what he says is in no way reassuring. “Yeah, yeah. Listen, you want this thing to go down smoothly as possible, it’s best you just lay low before we get the two of you on the road to Mexico”.

“ _Three_ ,” Mickey spits harshly, “ _Three of us_ ”.

He glares at the Mexican, his blue eyes shimmering with unspoken threats as he starts to ball his tattooed hands into fists.

Damon steps in at this point, sensing the swiftly growing tension in the van. He shakes his head at his friend, “It’s okay Miguel. _Teniamos un trato_ … he’s got two days to get Ian on board and then we leave. With or without him”.

He looks at Mickey very pointedly at the last part, who stares back just as seriously.

He’s not fucking around.

They arrive very late that night at a quiet and run down house, in a Chicago ghetto that is unfamiliar to Mickey, but is obviously home to the other three men.

The house is filled with mostly a mixture of young Mexican men and women, other members of Damon’s gang. A small handful of Caucasian women, who Mickey guesses are prostitutes, are sitting on a beat up old green couch in the living room around a tough looking fucker, who’s taking deep hits from a gigantic glass bong.

A couple used heroin needles are scattered carelessly across the scratched-up coffee table in front of them, and an ashtray, overflowing with cigarette butts.

Fuck Mickey could use a smoke.

Damon is immediately greeted with hugs and slaps on the back from multiple people as soon he walks through the front door…. all are clearly overjoyed to have him back home.

Mickey stands there awkwardly by the front door, watching the embraces. He’ll have his own reunion soon enough, he thinks. He patiently waits for them to finish.

Finally, Damon and Mickey are led to a filthy carpet underneath a pool table in a back room by Miguel, the man Mickey had been irritated with in the van, who now seems anxious to get them hidden.

Miguel crouches and rolls the carpet back, revealing a trap door that hides a crawlspace underneath it. “ _Hogar dulce hogar_ ” he laughs, waving them inside, and then to just Mickey, “ _Home sweet home_ ”.

It’s dusty, dark, and claustrophic inside, but they have no fucking choice other than to stay hidden there that night.

If the police do come looking for them here, it’s unlikely they will do an entire search and stumble across this purposeful hideaway.

Damon seems to sleep well in the narrow crawlspace, but as Mickey breathes in the floating dust particles through deep and shallow breaths, he can barely stay still, he is so charged with the thought of seeing Ian again.

He has no choice but to wait until the next morning to contact him, but as agreed upon, after breakfast is done, Miguel hands Mickey a burner phone with only one phone number in it.

Ian’s.

Miguel addresses him firmly, “Make your call and make it quick, then snap the phone in half. Our guy is gonna pass Ian any second, bump into him, and drop the phone. You better hope Ian decides to pick it up when it rings”. He says this warningly, letting Mickey know if this falls through…

They won’t be trying again.

Mickey grabs the phone from him without hesitation and hits the call button immediately.

It rings, and rings again, and he feels bile start to rise in his throat as there is no answer but then…

The ringing stops and the line is live.

“Miss me?” Mickey says into the phone, and then swallows hard.

“Mickey…where are you?”

It’s Ian’s fucking voice.

His wonderful, fucking, voice.

Mickey presses a fist against his forehead, forcefully reminding himself of the strict plan. Can’t fuck it up.

“Meet me at the South Shore docks in an hour. Drop the phone in a sewer”.

As much as he wants to say more, he clicks the phone shut, and then breaks it cleanly in half.

“Ready to go?” Miguel asks him, taking the pieces of the broken cellphone from his hands. Mickey nods.

He’s been ready for a very long time.

“Carlos and I will drop you and Damon off at the address you gave us, and leave one vehicle there for you. We’ll pick the guy up in the other, at the docks, and he’s gonna be blindfolded. Sorry but we can’t risk anything with this. We’ll drop him off to you. Talk or whatever, and we’ll tell Damon when it’s time for you to peel out. Don’t fuck up. Don’t do anything else. Leave when Damon says its time. Lay low. Do you fucking understand me?”

Mickey cracks his knuckles impatiently, “Yes let’s fucking go. And he’s a redhead, remember…look for the tall redhead. And he probably won’t go easy”. Mickey smiles, thinking how he is full of fire sometimes.

Miguel juts out his chin and just laughs, “We can handle some white boy, _hombre_ ”.

Mickey drives one car and leads them to his old high school so they know where it is, carefully making sure he doesn’t break or even approach breaking a single traffic law.

If he got this far just to be caught now, _well fuck_ … he’d probably rather die.

It’s strange being back in his old neighborhood. Well over a year has passed, but everything looks the same.

It’s not the same, so much has changed…but it looks the same. He takes some comfort in that.

He takes a sip from the bottle hidden inside a brown paper bag that Damon had given to him while they drove here, saying Mickey needed it more than he did. Mickey hadn’t even noticed that his hands were shaking.

He can barely fucking wait, it takes everything he has in him to leave the fucking car and go wait there for Ian behind the bleachers.

He starts to get anxious, as the time of Ian’s supposed arrival comes and goes.

Whatever alcohol is in that bottle burns as Mickey takes another deep swig of it, eventually starting to feel his mind calm slightly under the influence.

Finally, he sees a familiar dark and dirty van pull up swiftly into the dust.

He watches apprehensively as Miguel and Carlos shove open the door.

They toss out a tall man wearing a dark outfit with a black sack over his head from the back of the van and he lands in the dirt, hard.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive me if translations are rough :P
> 
> “Mickey es un joto, escapó por su amor” = (Mickey is a fag, escaped for his love)  
> "hijo de puta”= (motherfucker)  
> "Teniamos un trato" = (we had a deal)  
> "hombre" = (man)


	2. Human Condition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> short because I wanted to limit this chapter to this pivotal scene!

“ _MOTHERFUCKER…FUCK YOU_!” the guy screams, as he falls out of the van and hits the ground hard, landing awkwardly in the dust on his stomach and knees.

Yanking the covering sack off of his head, he curses at the rapidly disappearing van as he stands, and Mickey finally sees the flash of red hair appear.

It’s…it’s Ian.

Mickey watches him in silence from the shadows, barely believing Ian is finally there, so close to him, after so long. It feels like a fuckin dream.

“ _I’ll fuckin…fuckin kill you_ ” the redhead pants, quieting down, before turning directly towards where Mickey is standing, as if he could sense himself being watched.

Mickey is frozen in place for a moment, while Ian stares at him in disbelief.

It seems like forever passes in that moment, as the two of them stare at each other from across the fence, and Mickey feels a sad smile slowly crawl over his stubbly face.

He finally nods his head at Ian, signalling for him to follow, and then disappears further into the privacy of the bleachers.

These same bleachers had once hidden him as a gay and closeted teenager, and now they hide him as a convicted criminal on the run. He feels a certain gratitude towards them.

Ian works his way around the metal poles quickly, towards where Mickey is now waiting for him.

His red hair glints in the daylight, a shine Mickey thinks he missed as much as he missed his own freedom, as he watches Ian approach him.

He isn’t expecting the violent shove from him as he reaches Mickey, and he stumbles backwards in the dirt.

“ _What the fucks with the blindfold_?” Ian spits at him, angrily.

Mickey shoves him the fuck back, surprised, his own aggression now lit up. “ _What the fucks with you being late bitch_!”

The two are locked in an aggressive stand off for a few moments, each gripping each other’s jackets tightly, their faces just inches apart, waiting to see who will make the first move.

Electricity seems to arc between the two of them.

Mickey’s blue eyes flicker into Ian’s green ones, and he wants so badly to slam his mouth against the other man’s with heat, but instead they push apart.

He doesn’t want their reunion to be like this, but he gently laughs at the irony of it, “You like the high school bleachers? Our spot man”.

Mickey walks off a few feet and sits, while Ian stands there rubbing his jaw for a moment, before slowly following him.

Ian doesn’t sit beside Mickey and instead stands directly across from him, and Mickey finally notices that the dark outfit he is wearing is an EMT’s uniform.

He takes a drink from the booze he brought to steady his nerves, still hidden inside a brown paper bag, “You went all official on me”.

“EMT…I came from work”.

 Ian doesn’t look at Mickey as he says this, but instead glances around the bleachers nervously.

“Mmm” Mickey nods at this, thinking. Wondering how much Ian has changed.

Ian pulls him away from his worried thoughts with his next comment, “You look good”. He says it genuinely.

Mickey almost shakes his head, it’s hard to imagine this conversation that he had pictured so many fucking times in prison is actually happening. In this way.

“Not much else to do in there but work out” he finally says.

“So, what now.” Ian poses it like it’s a statement, but it’s definitely a question.

Mickey gestures past the chain link fence, “Layin low with my cellmate Damon”.

He waves at the large man standing at the fence, who looks menacing. “Mexican banger hitman motherfucker”. He flips off the thug with affection.

Ian laughs. Even tinged with nerves, it’s a beautiful sound.

Mickey finally voices his concern, casually.

“Cops come talkin to you?” He looks at Ian, wondering what he would have said to them.

“Think I’d snitch?” Ian’s eyes bore back into Mickey’s, as if he is offended by the question.

Mickey stares into them a while longer before looking down. He doesn’t know what Ian would do anymore.

He hasn’t known since that day he told Mickey they were done, in the front yard of the Gallagher home.

Mickey dips his head slowly, “Look I’m um, I’m getting some new ID’s, some cash, and headin to Mexico”, Mickey lays it all out reluctantly, wishing he had another option now that he’s back home.

He feels an undeniable pull to this neighborhood, to the memories he has here.

“Yeah?” Ian doesn’t really look surprised. Or upset.

“You should come” Mickey can’t believe how nonchalantly he manages to pull that off. It’s not how he had originally planned bringing up the topic to Ian, but things were confusing between them right now, and he tries to keep it casual.

Tries.

Ian stares as Mickey stands and approaches him meaningfully, “Come with you to Mexico?” He laughs as if it’s a joke, but seeing how Mickey’s eyes fall, his laughs quickly dies in his throat.

Mickey can’t hold it back anymore, “I thought a lot… about you inside”. An understatement, to say the least. He can’t look Ian in the eyes again yet, scared of what he’ll see written in them. He grips the collar of Ian’s EMT jacket, getting closer.

Finally, he looks up and meets Ian’s stunning green eyes, “You’re under my skin man, what the fuck can I do?”

He repeats it again, really wondering.

“What can I do?” he asks sadly.

Ian doesn’t pull away, and the space between them is closing even more as Ian seems about to lean in towards him.

Damon suddenly whistles sharply.

Fuck. Damon motions that it’s time to go and Mickey knows he can’t argue.

He looks back at Ian with imploring eyes and then puts his hand against Ian’s face affectionately, finally touching him after all this time. He doesn’t want to pull away. He wishes he didn’t have to.  

“Think about it”, he pats Ian’s cheek gently and then walks towards the car and Damon.

 And then he hears it.

“How am I gonna find you?”

He doesn’t look back, only answers with what he already had in place. “Look up”.

He finally glances back after he gets in the van and slides the door closed behind him. As Damon pulls away, he sees Ian inspecting the cellphone that he’d hidden in the bleachers.

It’s so hard to leave Ian standing there alone under the bleachers, but he does.


	3. Bloom

Mickey reluctantly goes back down into the crawlspace with Damon once they return to the gang’s safehouse, in case the police officers return and do another sweep.

Apparently, they had stopped by while Mickey and Damon were out, but seemed satisfied that they were not staying here, and continued their search elsewhere.

But Miguel still seems sort of distrustful towards him, like he’s gonna be the reason they get caught.

Mickey has no choice but to sit there in the dark a few feet away from Damon, who’s busy getting intoxicated to kill his boredom. Feels sorta like he’s still in prison with the guy.

He closes his eyes and thinks of Mexico, the ocean, and Ian.

 

Later that night Miguel finally lets up and they are allowed out of the crawlspace, feeling that the police are probably now moving on to farther possible escape destinations, having failed to find them where they expected to.  

Miguel hands Mickey a new burner phone, and describes exactly where he should meet Ian among the docks, “It’s dark and vacant at night. You’ll be safe there, if you don’t draw attention to yourselves”.

Mickey types out “Ian- meet me at the docks”.

He waits for the buzz of a returning text but it doesn’t come. An hour passes, and he’s realizes he’s been biting his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Damon looks up at him through red eyes apologetically from the couch, “Sorry man. That sucks. But you tried”.

He offers Mickey a hit off his bong.

Mickey looks at him angrily, “Fuck off. Just fucking wait. He’ll come”.

Still, he lingers at the house a little longer and sends one last text before he heads out on a solo drive to the docks, anxiety vibrating inside of him.  

“Are you coming? I’ll be there. 30 minutes. Red and white boat with tarp”.

The phone doesn’t go off in response but he grits his teeth and leaves the house anyways, ignoring Damon’s dumb looks of pity. He just doesn’t fucking get it.

Mickey drives through the dark Chicago streets, purposefully choosing the quieter ones, and leaves the van at the side of the road before he walks down to the docks in the shadowy and dim light.

He sits under a bridge while he waits, holding a smoke in his shaking hand as he watches the water gently lap up against the edge of the bank, over and over again.

It’s almost time to check if Ian is at the rendezvous.

He thinks for just a moment about what Damon had said as he left the house, “ _You tried_ ”.

Mickey had tried before, with everything he had, and it hadn’t been enough. Even if it was more than most people would do.

He still lost Ian once before, had he really lost him forever?

He shoves the ugly thought from his head with a violent shake and tosses his cigarette to the damp ground as he stands, and then brushes his pants off. He can’t afford to think that way.

It’s time to go.

He walks up the dock steps slowly.

He’s never been a man to pray but he’s fucking praying now…

…and into his view comes Ian, waiting there, a smoke resting between his perfect lips.

Fuck.

Happiness.

“Knew you’d come” his voice is throaty, filled with emotion as he strides towards Ian. “Knew you’d come, come here…”

Ian throws his cigarette to the ground with conviction and heads straight for Mickey, but this time he doesn’t push him away, and they connect with passion.

Their lips slam together with over a year of longing and loss pulling them in. Everything in Mickey’s body screams with electricity and fire as he feels Ian tighten against his muscular body once more.

He pushes his tongue deeply into Ian’s hot mouth, who pushes back just as aggressively with his own, their hands gripping each other’s heads to pull each other impossibly closer throughout the wet kiss.

Mickey’s body feels tight with expanding emotions rising uncontrollably inside of him.

He could scream, he could cry, he could punch into the air with relief.

The love of his life is finally back in his arms.  

All of a sudden, a hand pushes hard against his chest and Ian steps away from him, breaking the kiss.

Mickey looks at him with sudden confusion, wiping some excess saliva from his mouth while he waits for Ian to explain.

“What the fuck?” he laughs, uncertainly.

Ian’s voice is cold when he speaks, “You think my life hasn’t moved on since you were locked up Mickey?”

Mickey stares at him in disbelief for a moment, feeling and ugly and familiar fear creeping up inside of him. He tries to push it away.

“No, I just thought that you’d be down for me since the whole reason I did time was for going after the bitch who tried to ruin you”.

Ian answers angrily, “I’m _not_. _Pissing away_ my life”. He enunciates every word harshly. 

Mickey shakes his head, not wanting to hear anymore of this shit, he can’t. “Stop”.

He pulls Ian in again for another kiss, and Ian lets him.

Mickey holds his angular face lovingly with relief before running a hand down Ian’s hard chest, feeling his familiar body beneath it.

It only lasts for a few moments before Ian fucking pushes him away again.

 _What the fuck!_ Races through Mickey’s brain, but doesn’t escape from his lips. He scratches his neck with his thumb, confused and now agitated as well.

“ _Fuck!”_ Ian yells with frustration.

He paces just a few feet away, “I have my _shit together_ Mick. And I have _a_ \- a fuckin boyfriend”. 

This last part comes out unsteadily, as if Ian is trying to remind himself as much as he is trying to inform Mickey of this fact.

Mickey’s eyebrows shoot up in disbelief. There it is.

His greatest fear.

But...was it?

Wasn’t Ian right here in front of him, Mickey?

He decides to challenge Ian, not buying this shit, “Boyfriend?”

Ian nods.

“Okay…what you doing here then?” he stares Ian down, seeing how badly he wants this too. “Hmm?”

Ian paces like an animal for a moment, torn.

But then he rushes forward again, yanking Mickey’s jacket down from his arms roughly, with one fluid motion.

Their lips come crashing together again, Mickey pulls Ian’s jacket off too, eager to undress him.

He feels charged to the brim with electricity.

He reaches for Ian’s belt heatedly, “ _Tell me goodbye_ ” he demands breathily. Their foreheads are pressed against each other, their sweat and breath mingling in the intensity of the moment.

Ian pushes Mickey back against the boat behind him, but it’s not so rough this time. Mickey waits.

“ _What_ ” he breathes, not a question, but another challenge.

Arousal pumps so heavily through his veins that his vision almost clouds.

He can’t remember ever wanting Ian more than he did in this exact fucking moment.

Ian wrenches his own shirt off.

“Mm…” Mickey bites his bottom lip knowingly, appreciating the sight of Ian for just a small moment. He unfastens his own belt hastily and turns around, unable to wait any longer to have Ian inside of him again.

He hears Ian’s own belt snapping as he undoes it hurriedly. Mickey looks back behind him just slightly, needing to see him, and Ian is there.

He delicately pushes some of Mickey’s now long hair away from his neck.

Ian starts to plant hot and needy kisses there as he positions himself against Mickey’s entrance.

Mickey can’t stand it any fucking longer.

“ _Fuck_ ” he breathes, running his tongue over his lip, feeling the coppery taste of blood from where he bit it so hard earlier, as want swells over him.

He reaches behind himself and pulls Ian into himself by his hips, unable to wait for a buildup. They connect.

Like a lightening bolt striking the hard earth Ian quickly fills him with a slow burn, and he breathes out heavily from the sensation, reminding his body to relax after not having been invaded in so long.

Ian’s firm body presses up behind him while he pushes into Mickey and his strong arm then reaches around, his large hand covering Mickey’s, as they fuck there underneath the night sky.

Just like he always used to.


	4. No Good Unless It's Real

Mickey comes more violently than he ever has in his entire life, at the exact moment that Ian does, jerking forwards against the boat from the sheer force of it. He pants when he’s done as Ian rests his forehead against his back, spent and regaining his strength, and then Mickey slowly turns around to face him.

Ian’s face is softer now, still breathing out heavily he looks back at Mickey through wide and vulnerable eyes, the moment obviously being just as emotional for him as it is for Mickey.

Mickey bites his lip and raises his eyebrow, raising a hand to Ian’s face he gently strokes it, silently exuding comfort towards his lover as he fights back tears.

He can’t believe how much he fucking missed this human being.

In that moment, it doesn’t matter that Ian never visited.

He finally manages to swallow his tears back, and murmurs, “Stay with me”.

Ian agrees wordlessly, nodding his head, and Mickey takes his hand, leading him back to the van he had parked in the darkness.

He unlocks the door and climbs into the empty back first, offering Ian a hand, even though he doesn’t need it. He takes it anyways, and joins Mickey inside the van.

They sit there in silence for a moment, and then Mickey reaches back to grab some blankets he had stowed there earlier.

Ian starts to take off his shoes and Mickey does the same, and then removes his jeans. They are still damp from when he was sitting and waiting underneath the bridge on the moist and dewy grass.

Ian is so quiet, but it’s okay because nothing needs to be said.

He’s here now.

Mickey lays down on the floor of the van and looks back at Ian through solemn eyes, who immediately crawls over and joins him, pressing up against his back. He holds Mickey close to him.

The same way he used to back when they shared that tiny bed in the Gallagher home each night.

Mickey pulls the blankets up just to their waists, even though the air is chilly, because he doesn’t want to block the feeling of Ian’s heavy arm being draped over him, and the feeling of Ian’s warm hand underneath his own.

Just like he had imagined on so many nights when he was alone, in prison.

He wishes he could stay awake all night just to be aware of Ian’s body being beside his, but after not having slept properly in days, months even…he drifts off into a contented sleep, his aching heart finally afforded some relief as Ian holds him.

 

He jerks into consciousness the next morning, feeling someone prodding at him, saying “Hey, _hey!_ ”.

Panic floods his veins as he wonders wildly if he’s been caught, but as he comes to, he realizes it’s Ian’s voice, and slowly settles back down.

“ _Ah…fu..ck_ ” he groans slightly, shifting in place, feeling stiff from sleeping in the van.

“I gotta go! Back to work and shit” Ian sounds surprisingly chipper as he tells Mickey this.

Mickey rolls over onto his back. Listening to Ian zip up his jeans and do up his belt, he presses a hand to his chest. Wondering.

“Am I gonna see you again?” He doesn’t open his eyes, nervous about what he will hear, or see. Each moment he had with Ian since he escaped, he worried would be the last.

Instead of hearing an answer he feels hands touch his face gently. He opens his eyes to see Ian pulling him into a strong kiss as his firm body leans over him. Morning breath never smelled so sweet.

Mickey curls one hand up onto Ian’s neck and the other to his arm, intensifying the kiss.

Wanting more.

They kiss deeply for a few moments but then Ian pulls upwards and away, popping a cigarette into Mickey’s open and now disappointed mouth as he does.

Fuck the guy knows him.

Mickey can’t keep the smile off his face, even as Ian hops out of the van and into the daylight, ready to return to his normal life.  

 

He drives back to the Mexican gangbangers place alone, and it’s considerably emptier when he walks in the front door this time.

“ _Ayy Mickayy!”_ Damon crows, “Look who didn’t come home last night? You walkin funny man?”

Mickey can’t help but laugh as he says it, “Fuck off”. He’s just so fucking happy right now.

Miguel enters the room with no such amusement and address Mickey somberly, “You got a day man. Everything is ready to go, and you and Damon are leaving tomorrow morning. With or without your man”.

Mickey swallows hard and nods, knowing there is no other option.

But not knowing if Ian will come.

“Where you going when you get to Mexico?” Alejandro asks Mickey, watching as he lights up a cigarette. One of Damon’s other gang brothers, who is now disappearing into the bedroom.

“I dunno man. Wherever the beaches are” Mickey says around his smoke, noting how Miguel rolls his eyes as he does, he narrows his own eyes in return, “What?”

The three of them are now sitting around the battered coffee table in the living room, Mickey planning to kill some time with cigarettes and the other two possibly keeping an eye on him, who knows.

Alejandro is pretty much a kid still, and seems to have had a genuine and friendly interest in Mickey ever since he arrived, but Miguel just watches him like a hawk, still not quite trusting him. Not that Mickey expected anything different, really. He’s the only one to have stayed in the house that belongs to neither the gang who occupies it, or the group of prostitutes who frequent it.

Miguel answers sounding rather annoyed, “You aren’t just going to arrive in Mexico and hit the beaches dumbass, you won’t have any money left by the time you get there to go driving around looking for tropical beaches with your boyfriend, like you’re on some fucking vacation”.

Mickey looks at him uncertainly, not having considered this realistic situation yet. “Well do you have any fucking suggestions then?”

“Yeah, I do. I used to live off of Monterrey City for a bit, in San Nicolas de los Garza. Damon’s gonna head there, guess he didn’t tell you. Ghettos there will be a cheap enough place for you to start out in, make some money and move into the better neighborhoods. Then you can go wherever the fuck you want”.

Mickey, being completely unfamiliar with Mexico, hears the logic in what Miguel is saying. As much as he doesn’t want to drag Ian into some fucking ghetto, he doesn’t have to help him once they are there to make some money quickly, illegally as it’s the fastest way.

Once Mickey does a couple jobs or helps sell some drugs they can get the fuck out of there, and head towards their paradise.

Miguel watches him as he thinks, and decides to add, “And don’t go too fucking deep into the ghettos either. You obviously ain’t a pussy, but you’re no match either for any of the Zetas, Sinaloas or any other fucking cartels working those areas. Even Damon knows enough to stay the fuck away from that shit”.

So, Mickey’s not the only one who’s noticed how fucking dumb Damon is sometimes, but _he’s_ not stupid himself either, “Yeah I fucking get it, I’m not gonna wander into the ghetto looking to make friends with a cartel drug lord” he says sarcastically.

Miguel nods, satisfied that his warning has reached Mickey, “You need to make cash fast, find a local drug dealer and work for them. No big organizations, it’s not fucking worth getting shot over. Avoid the cops too, they ain’t gonna help you”.

Mickey rolls his eyes, “Do I look like the kinda guy that goes and asks fucking police officers for help? Give me some fucking credit, I just escaped from Cook County Correctional”.

The other man stands, done with the conversation, “Alright, alright. Just wanted to make sure you and D don’t get there and fuck things up for yourselves. Already had the same talk with him man”. But his tone is friendlier now than when the conversation started, perhaps because he thinks Damon and Mickey will now be extending their 'professional' relationship.

Alejandro gets up and leaves the room and then comes back in with some clean clothes and an unused razor as Mickey is sitting in the living room, thinking about this.

 “You better clean up man. Shower, and shave that”. He points to Mickey’s stubble and long, and now somewhat greasy, hair. “No offence but you look like a homeless dude. Cops see you out driving a nice car, they gonna look twice”.

“Yeah… I know. Thanks man”, Mickey takes the clothes from his arms gratefully and heads into the empty bathroom. He closes the door gently and approaches the dirty mirror hanging above the sink.

He stares into his own reflection, his vibrant blue eyes in the mirror staring right back.

His hair is long and dirty, his stubble dark against his pale skin. He needs a shower badly.

But he looks lighter than he has in over a year, with faint hope now lingering behind his solemn face.

He shakes his head at what his life is now. He never thought he’d have an easy life, fuck, he knew that he wouldn’t even when he was just a little kid.

But he had never in his wildest dreams, imagined being a fugitive. Or being so in love with a man, that he would risk his entire life just to be with him.

He strips and then cranking the water dial, steps into the first private shower he’s had since his arrest.

He lets the hot water pour over his skin for a very long time, with no one interrupting him. No timed water shut off. No temperature jumping from freezing to scalding, in an instant.

He builds a generous lather into his hands with a new bar of soap that he finds in the shower, and cleans himself thoroughly. He shaves while he showers, rubbing his smooth face with his hand when he’s done.

Standing in front of the mirror again a while later, dripping water onto the frayed bathmat, he looks at his reflection again. He grabs an electric razor that’s sitting by the edge of the sink and turns it on.

Slowly and carefully he buzzes his hair to the same length it used to be, dark clumps of wet hair hitting the floor and his feet after each stroke.

When he’s done, he shuts off the razor, dries himself, and dresses in the clean clothes. He combs his hair back into the style it used to be.

The familiar man staring back at him in the mirror now, as he stands there alone in the bathroom, has many emotions running over his pale and ashen face.

Love.

Hope.

Fear.


	5. Dopamine

Mickey dreams of the ocean again that night. Of drifting waters, as deep and as blue as his own two eyes, tinged with a brilliant hue of green. The color of Ian’s.

He wakes up in the morning with a start, his heart already pounding hard with adrenaline as he remembers what today means.

It could be a new beginning. It could be the end.

He sits at the kitchen table with Damon and his boys because it seems polite, but he can’t eat a thing. He is so nervous, that he feels nauseas, and his hands are clammy and cold.

One of the gang members, Carlos, hands him a torn piece of paper with an address scrawled onto it, belonging to a coyote he had once apparently shared a prison cell with in Cook County Correctional, the very same prison Damon and Mickey had escaped from.

Carlos tells them he will likely be able to help Damon and Mickey find a way across the border, towards their freedom in Mexico, although he doesn’t know how.

Mickey carefully tucks the piece of paper into his pocket, not trusting Damon with it.

“Got bags ready for you both, too. Clothes, some food. Already put your stuff in there” Alejandro says, pointing to two duffel bags on the floor as he swallows another mouthful of scrambled eggs. He is the younger boy, closer to Mickey’s own size, who shared his clothes with him.

“Thanks man” Mickey nods at him, but Alejandro doesn’t miss the worried look in his blue eyes.

He looks down awkwardly at his plate but says as reassuringly as he can to Mickey, “It’ll be okay”.

“Yeah, I hope so”, Mickey says hoarsely, and then turns his head, mind made up. “Listen Miguel, I need…I need to take the car first. To the spot where Ian will be waiting. By myself”.

Miguel spits something out harshly in Spanish but Mickey speaks again more loudly, over him.

 “ _I will be back in time to get Damon no matter what Ian says_ , okay? But if it’s goodbye, I need to be alone when it…when it happens”. He gestures with his hands for Miguel to chill the fuck out as he argues back in Spanish, Mickey not understanding a single word of it but getting the jist of what he is most likely saying. He wants to tell him to _speak fucking English_ , but he thinks it wouldn’t probably be wiser if he didn’t.

Miguel doesn’t look ready to agree to the plan, but fortunately Damon does for him, “Miguel, _cálmese_! _It’s cool._ Do your thing Mickey. Just be back in time motherfucker”.

Mickey nods and gets up from the kitchen table, going to the back room to call Ian this one last time in privacy.

The phone rings over and over again, with no answer. Mickey stands against the dingy bedroom wall that is painted pale blue, pressing his forehead into it. Praying.

A heavy weight gathers in Mickey’s knotted chest before the line finally goes live.

Ian picked up, but doesn’t say anything.

“Hey you coming or not Gallagher? I’ll be at the spot”. Mickey swallows hard and hangs up the phone without waiting for an answer, and heads back out to the living room, where Damon tosses the keys to the Jeep at him.

“ _Be-“_

“ _Be back in fucking time_ I got it” he says as he catches the keys, irritated and unable to fucking care about anything that doesn’t involve Ian’s decision right now.

Damon shrugs back at him and Mickey steps out of the dilapidated house into the daylight, pushing his sunglasses down over his eyes as he does so.

He drives with as much conviction to the meeting place as he can, steeling himself for what he is pretty sure is coming.

Ian won’t go.

He no longer doubts that Ian cares about him, but he does find a worrying hint in the fact that after over a year apart, Ian left him easily in the morning to go to work yesterday, like it was just a normal day.

But he has to accept it. He has no other choice now.

He thinks about what Dr. Howard said to him about letting go as he pulls up to where Ian is waiting with a backpack, dust rolling out from underneath the tires of the car as he approaches. He wonders if he ever could.

He pulls down his sunglasses to look at Ian’s face. At least he is here, at least he got this… a goodbye. He’s scared to hope for anything more.

He hits the break and waits, looking at Ian, searching his familiar face. Ian’s expression is hard, and unreadable, as he stands there in the sunlight.

Mickey grips the steering wheel of the car tightly with one hand, looking down. “This goodbye?”

He thought he could do this but now he’s not sure. He can’t even look at Ian. It’s gonna hurt too fucking much.

But he finally forces himself to look, knowing that if he doesn’t, he’ll always regret not getting the most out of every last minute he had with Ian in front of him, before he has to spend the rest of his life without him.

Ian doesn’t say anything, but suddenly shrugs the backpack he is wearing down his shoulder, and tosses it onto the front passenger seat of the car. Mickey looks down at the backpack slowly as Ian yanks open the car door and throws himself down beside Mickey, closing the door firmly behind him.

Mickey’s brain struggles to process this for a moment, and as he stares at Ian, Ian finally smiles.

“Let’s ride”.

Words had never sounded so fucking wonderful to Mickey, and relief breaks into his wan face as he starts to grin, so fucking relieved.

So happy.

He lowers his sunglasses and hits the gas with determination, ready to start the rest of his life.

Free, with Ian.


	6. Return to the Halcyon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been raining all weekend and it's supposed to continue, so although I'm cooped up inside, I've had lots of time to write!  
> For the chapter title, 'Return to the Halcyon', Halcyon is sort of an uncommon term but it refers to a time in the past that was peaceful, and happy.  
> Also note, nothing in this chapter was shown in the show, and it's just me filling in some of the gaps.  
> *Chapter rated Explicit for graphic sexual content*

“Where we headed?” Ian asks him, looking out the window at the unfamiliar sights as Mickey pulls back into Miguel’s neighborhood.

“Where the ocean is” Mickey grins, looking over at Ian from behind the wheel, “But first we gotta pick up fuck head. My cellmates comin’ with us”. He shrugs his shoulders apologetically, and Ian looks amused, but doesn’t argue.

Damon and his gang mates do look surprised to see Mickey pulling back into the driveway with Ian sitting beside him in the car, and he can’t help but smirk as he rolls down the window, somewhat arrogantly saying, “What’d I fucking tell you? He’s my ride or die”.

Damon just shrugs, and his tosses his duffel bag into the back of the Jeep, before turning to the remaining members of his gang still standing on the driveway, who are ready to say goodbye. They are a true brotherhood, not afraid to show affection, and with red eyes they hug Damon and slap him on the back heartily in farewell, before he gets into the backseat of the Jeep.

“Let’s go _muchachos!_ ” he says, leaning in towards Ian and Mickey from the back seat, “To our new _Mexican life_ ”. Mickey looks at Ian with elation, “To where the fuckin ocean is!”

He slams his foot down on the gas, tearing them out of the Chicago ghetto, and towards their new life.

He really couldn’t have imagined getting this far, even on the night he had escaped, but fate seems to be on his side, and it’s a blessing he won’t question.

They crank the car radio, and for the first few hours of the trip the three of them just talk excitedly. About the road trip, about being criminals on the run, and about Mexico. Ian and Mickey mostly just listen, as Damon describes it to them with as much detail as he can.

When they finally reach Missouri about six hours later, Mickey pulls over into a highway rest station with public washrooms and cheap fast food joints lining it’s massive parking lot.

They all step out of the Jeep to stretch, and Ian peers at a coffee shop across the lot, his hand shielding his eyes from the bright daylight. “I need some caffeine badly. Want anything?” He looks from Damon to Mickey expectantly.

“Whatever’s good, thanks Ian” Mickey answers, and Damon nods too, “Iced coffee would be bomb man”.

Ian walks off across the lot and Damon looks at Mickey, nodding his head towards the public washrooms, “Gonna go take a dump”. “Uh, thanks for telling me?” Mickey says, frowning, not needing the extra fucking detail. He lights a cigarette while he waits for them to return.

But Damon comes back just a few minutes later, looking absolutely _fucked up_.

Mickey tosses his cigarette butt to the ground, and narrows his eyes at the gangbanger as he staggers towards him. He averts his gaze guiltily once he is front of Mickey, who is blocking him from opening the car door.  “ _Are you fucking on something?_ Did you buy something in there?” Mickey demands, looking back at the washroom as if maybe he’ll see some fucking drug dealer come strolling out to answer the question for him.

“Dude, it’s fineee” Damon steps towards the car, pushing Mickey aside, and reaches for the handle four fucking times before his hand finally lands on it, and he pulls the door open.

Mickey’s mouth drops in anger, “Are you _fucking kidding me?_ How much money did you fucking waste?” He knew it was a mistake to let Damon carry the fucking money, but he couldn’t exactly voice that concern to the rest of his gang, who’s money it was, and he had just hoped for the best when they handed it to him.

“S’my money”.

“No, it’s Miguel’s _fucking money_ and it was for both of us to get to Mexico safely, you stupid fuck! Enough to keep us fed so we don’t have to risk getting caught robbing some petty joint!” Mickey is fucking fuming, and as he glances up he sees Ian now coming back out of the café and across the lot, carrying a tray of drinks.

“Give me the rest” he demands, pawing at Damon’s jacket, who swats him away easily. “I don’t got nothing” he mumbles, pressing his head down into the backseat of the Jeep.

“ _Jesus fucking Christ_ ” Mickey practically moans in frustration, “You spent _all the fucking money_? Listen, lay down and shut the fuck up. Sleep it off. Don’t say a fucking word to Ian about this, I mean it”. Damon just groans back in response, but lays down in the backseat anyways, obviously fucking gone.

Ian reaches them a moment later, smiling.

“Here” he hands Mickey an iced coffee, who takes it gratefully, trying to hide his concern. The last thing he needs is Ian doubting their trip before they even get halfway there, “Thanks”. He takes the third iced coffee and shoves it roughly towards Damon, who is thankfully still laying quietly in the backseat.

Ian gets busy buckling his seatbelt, and doesn’t notice the unusual state of the third passenger in the Jeep as Mickey starts the car and pulls back onto the highway.

Damon has fucked them over with the money, sure. But things could be worse. Could be a lot worse. Mickey looks over at Ian and feels some of his stress dissipate immediately at the sight of the attractive red head, who is nodding his head gently to the music on the radio.

Ian feels Mickey’s eyes on him and looks over, as he takes a sip of his iced coffee, “What?”

Mickey smiles and just shakes his head, “You’re fucking beautiful, you know that?” Ian rolls his eyes at the excessive compliment, “Says you”.

Mickey can’t contain the grin on his face as they speed down the highway towards their destiny.

It’s another six and a half long hours before they reach Oklahoma, right as the evening falls, and Mickey is fucking exhausted.

They have no money, but it would have been a waste of any to get a hotel room even if they did, so Ian doesn’t react with surprise when Mickey finds a place to pull over in the middle of nowhere, off from the highway, and parks for the night.

Mickey sniffs, still gripping the steering wheel, and then looks back at the heavily passed out Damon sprawled across the back seats.

“He alright?” Ian asks, glancing back at the Mexican.

“He’s fine…stupid fuck” Mickey shakes his head and laughs, before biting his lip, and looking at Ian. He recognizes the look in Ian’s dark eyes and feels it too.

“C’mon” Mickey pushes open the car door and steps out onto the dry grass. He opens the trunk of the Jeep and takes out a thick outdoor blanket from it, while Ian walks around the side car to meet him there.

The two of them walk away from the locked Jeep, continuing on for several minutes before stopping in a preferable looking spot, where Mickey spreads out the thick blanket over the grass for them to sleep on.

Laying behind a slight dip in the land, they can’t even see the Jeep anymore, and it feels like they are completely alone underneath the night sky, surrounded by a vast and empty land, that is lightly peppered with trees and bushes every so often.

The two of them lay there on the blanket in the dark for a few minutes, facing each other as pale moonlight illuminates their forms gently.

Mickey still can’t believe Ian is actually there in front of him, after so many night of dreaming of this in prison, and he reaches a hand out towards him slowly, as if to check that he is truly there.

Ian takes his hand and presses it to his chest, and Mickey can feel his heart thudding through his shirt.

“This is real” Ian mutters gently, sensing Mickey’s mood, “I’m real”. He reaches out with both of his hands, pulling the dark-haired boy forward into a slow and passionate kiss, their exhaustion now letting go to something else, something stronger.

Ian’s lips are hot and wet and hungry against his, and their tongues dart in and out of each other’s mouths as they kiss, exploring eagerly. Mickey hears himself let out a moan of need after few minutes, and Ian moves south in response, Mickey rocking onto his back to give him easier access to the button and zipper of his jeans.

Ian struggles for a moment to get his straining hard-on out from behind his tight jeans, but as soon as he does, he moves his mouth down towards it. Mickey looks down at Ian through eyes filled with want, feeling Ian’s hot breath drift across it, his dick stirs uncontrollably, but Ian halts its movement with his hand before guiding it into his warm mouth.

Breathing out slowly and shakily, Mickey wills himself to stay steady as Ian blows him, but he can barely control himself. He is just so unbelievably worked up after going so long without this, and he bucks up into Ian’s mouth accidently, just a bit, as Ian goes down on him. He glances down at Ian quickly with concern, to see if that was okay, but Ian is staring back at him through hooded and approving eyes, still moving his mouth up and down. Swirling his tongue against Mickey’s dick while he deepthroats him.

Mickey moves his hips upwards again, and Ian still doesn’t protest, so he continues to do it, abandoning his concern for Ian’s comfort. His movements are slightly jerky from his intense arousal, but he humps into Ian’s mouth as gently as he can, although now for a different reason than concern.

He just doesn’t need to rush this, and he wants to enjoy every fucking second of it. Every fucking second of being with Ian again.

The intensifying build-up happens rather quickly, regardless, as he feels a familiar fire start in his chest and then burn downwards toward his groin. Like a string is being pulled taught inside of him, and is ready to be released. “ _Mff_ …” he grunts, unable to articulate his warning properly, “ _Gonna_ …”

Ian suddenly jerks his mouth down faster in response to Mickey’s groan, and Mickey comes hard. In one large burst, and then with several more shuddering aftershocks as he moans and curses incoherently until he’s finished. He’s not surprised, and grins, as Ian spits a mouthful of come out onto the grass away from where they are laying, Mickey’s load being too heavy and thick for him to swallow it all.  

“Jesus Gallagher. _I missed that fucking mouth._ Missed _you_ ”.

Ian doesn’t answer and instead puts one strong hand against Mickey’s left hip bone, pushing against it, signalling for him to rollover. His eyes are blown.

“That’s right baby, your turn”, Mickey pants, lowering his jeans even more as he turns and lays on his belly, giving Ian full access to what he wants so badly. He doesn’t usually call Ian names like that, but tonight, it just feels right.

Ian spits several times down onto his hole as he spreads his fleshy cheeks apart. “Forgot the lube in the car” he explains breathily, without taking his eyes away from the perfect fucking sight in front of him.

Mickey doesn’t answer and instead his lifts his ass upwards from the ground, inviting Ian to take him just as he is. He doesn’t see Ian positioning himself behind him, but he feels the glorious stretch just moments later as Ian slowly pushes inside of him, inch by inch.

_“Fuckkkk_ ” he groans, never fully getting used to the indescribable sensation, it always takes him by surprise, no matter how long it’s been.

Ian moves into him with a steady pace at first, not pulling out yet but just pushing himself in deeper.

“Gonna go harder” he pants, warning Mickey. Mickey nods his head into the blanket wordlessly, and thrusts a hand behind himself for Ian to hold onto. Ian grabs it and holds on tightly as he slowly pulls almost his entire length out, leaving just the tip inside of Mickey, who feels himself clench around it uncontrollably.

Ian shoves himself back in and Mickey gasps, but just as quickly Ian is back out again, and just as far. He does this over and over again mercilessly, each time hitting Mickey’s prostate for just a moment, teasing him agonisingly.

The stars twinkle down at the two lovers gently, and Mickey gasps as Ian picks up his pace, now done with teasing. But then he stops moving, “Get in my lap” he says, pulling out. He sits back down on the blanket, his legs outstretched, waiting.

Mickey doesn’t argue, and gets up quickly before he lowers himself back down into Ian’s lap carefully, taking his cock entirely again as he does so, their eyes locked in a heated gaze. Their naked chests press against each other, as Ian wraps one strong arm around Mickey’s back, pulling him closer to him, letting the other hand wrap around Mickey’s ass that’s resting against his thighs.

Mickey kisses Ian gently again and then leans his body back just slightly, so he can ride him, resting one tattooed hand on Ian’s thick thigh for balance. He feels tears prick at the corners of his eyes, and Ian squeezes his hand harder before he rocks back into Mickey, their bodies moving in unison. They understand each other’s bodies so well after all this time, that each movement is perfect.  

After several minutes of this, they wordlessly climax together, Ian buried deep inside of Mickey, and Mickey releasing upwards for a second time onto their chests, as they both shudder from their intense orgasms.

Even though both of their eyes were closed in that moment, they still saw stars.

They sleep outside that night underneath the Oklahoma sky, but instead of spooning like they normally do, they fall asleep facing each other, with their foreheads pressing together gently and their arms intertwined, as close as they can possibly be to each other.


	7. Maybe We’re Both Fucked (Maybe I’m Just Bad Luck)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NEW* Made a trailer for this fic on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKqsbnG1wiI  
> There's one for Inside Secure Walls as well, and my other fic Two Friends Like Us.

The heat of the rising Southern sun wakes Ian and Mickey, after they had spent the rest of the night deeply entwined in each others limbs, their foreheads pressed together gently as they slept.

Mickey is soon rolling up the thick blanket they spent the night on as he blinks against the harsh daylight, while Ian takes off to find a bush to piss in, both of them knowing they have to get back on the road as soon as possible.

“Think the car will still be there?” Ian jokes, as he returns to where Mickey is waiting for him, thinking of the Mexican they had left passed out in the back seat of it last night.

Mickey pulls the car keys out of his pocket and jingles them in response.

They approach the silver Jeep they had abandoned the night before, and Damon leaps out of it as soon as they get close.

“Where the fuck did you two go? Man, I thought I was fuckin stranded out here!” he complains loudly.

“Yeah well, that’s what you get, dumbass” Mickey mutters, while Ian goes around to the trunk to toss the blanket back inside. He is at least glad to see the guy is fucking sober today. So far anyways.

He hadn’t been half as fucking annoying in prison, but he also hadn’t had as many opportunities to get his hands on drugs that he didn’t have to sell there, which obviously make him do stupid shit.

Mickey puts the car back in gear once they all pile in, and then looks carefully for any stray rocks or debris that may be in the way of the tires before he pulls back onto the highway, and soon they are on the move again.

They drive straight through towards Texas, the Oklahoma landscape now changing to flatter and wider expanses of ruddy desert. Every so often, a stray tumbleweed is put into motion by the car that goes whipping past it, and will bumble gently across the dirt in lazy pursuit of them.

Damon’s choice of music is playing in the Jeep, some kind of Mexican rap that’s not even half bad, to be fair. He’s been quiet so far today, stretched out in the backseat, and probably still coming down off his insane high from yesterday.

They’ve been quiet too, tired from the long hours of driving, and the very late night they spent making love under the stars, before getting just a few hours of light sleep in and then hitting the road again. The Jeep is filled with a sort of comfortable and lazy contentedness today, that doesn’t break until the afternoon.

Mickey feels Ian’s eyes flickering over him as he drives, and he finally looks back with amusement to see Ian smirking at him.

“The fuck you lookin at?”

Ian shifts his gaze off from Mickey back onto the dusty road stretching in front of them, “You still haven’t told me your plan”. He lolls his head back playfully and then looks back at Mickey, waiting for a response.

Mickey continue to focus on the road, and answers rather seriously, as if he had put a lot of thought into it, “I’m thinking a little bit of nipple pinching, then some ass eatin”.

Ian laughs, but then tries again for an answer. “Seriously”.

But Mickey’s not ready for this conversation to take the sharp turn towards the serious and difficult path lying ahead of them, he still wants to stay in this protective bubble of adventure and happiness for as long as he can.

 So, he deflects the question once again, “Alright, hey. Go straight to fuckin, that’s fine”.

Frankly, as long as he has Ian beside him, it’s hard to worry very much about anything. And sex had always been the simplest and easiest part of their relationship, from the very beginning, so it was reassuring to return to that topic. No matter how mind blowing it was, it always made perfect sense between them. It could take them away from everything else going on their lives, off into their own safe world. It always had.

“You’re a fugitive alright?” This bursts from Ian with a tone of amusement and disbelief, who is obviously not willing to drop the topic, “You can’t just stroll across the Mexican border”.

“I told you, I got it covered”, Mickey reassures Ian, the best that he can. The truth is, all he has is an address and a name from Carlos of a coyote that had navigated illegal crossings before, one who Carlos thought might help them. But Ian doesn’t need to worry about that, Mickey will figure it out before they reach the border. 

“Even learned me some Spanish” he adds, thinking of what Alejandro had translated for him before he left. He repeats the words somewhat awkwardly as he tries to remember how they sounded coming out of Miguel’s mouth when he was yelling at Damon for something.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Ian asks once he’s done, his hand resting outside of the car window, gripping the hood of the car casually while they speak.

“Say that again, I’ll shove your dick down your throat”. That part’s easy to remember.

“You have any money?” Ian finally asks.

Fuck.

Mickey decides not to mention that the fucking idiot in the back seat had blown all of their cash on some fucking pills from a pit stop restroom. “We’ll get some”.

He’s not sure exactly how they will do that yet, but with a safe end so close in sight, he’s not willing to let go of the belief that this will all go the way it’s supposed to, for once in his fucking life.

As if it’s some sort of an omen, a police car begins to approach them, coming from the opposite direction on the road, and the car instantly fills with tension in response.

“ _Shit_ ” Ian shifts downwards in his seat, obviously panicked.

Mickey rests his arm casually on the window to block his face from view as the police car reaches their window. No _, no._ This is _not_ fucking happening.

Time seems to freeze for a moment, as the police officer is sitting just a couple feet away from them, their cars passing each other in what feels like slow motion…

…and it keeps going.

Mickey watches the police car continue down the road from the rear-view mirror, and then relaxes, breathing out a sigh of relief, while Ian continues to clench his jaw in agitation.

The mood shift makes Mickey uncomfortable, and he doesn’t want Ian to be sitting there stewing about possibly getting caught, so he changes the subject to one he is now very fond of.

“So, you ever been to the beach?”

Ian answers tensely, looking out the side window at the empty desert landscape as if it is suddenly more palatable than being inside the car.

“No.”

“Sun all year round, no more freezin our asses off. Just sandals and tequila from here on man”. It feels pretty fucking great to finally be able to share his image of paradise with Ian, and he watches him while he does, to see what his expression is.

Ian nods his head very slightly, and Mickey thinks back to those long days in his cell. “That’s what kept me going in the joint”, Mickey admits to him. “The beach. Us”.

He thinks about that day he sat in the prison library, running his fingers over a picture of a beach in Mexico, picturing himself and Ian there. And then he thinks about how many nights he wasn’t sure he wanted to go on living anymore, believing he’d truly lost Ian… and he realizes he needs to lighten the mood in the car, once again. 

“Bet your white ass burns like a motherfucker” he teases, knowing damn well he’s just as pale as Ian is.

Ian finally smiles and then laughs, at the ridiculous thought of their pale asses burning in the sun, and he turns to Mickey but before he can say anything, a makeshift bong is thrust in-between them from the back seat.

Surprise surprise, look who’s awake again and back to getting stoned. At least it’s just weed.

“You wanna hit this?” Damon asks, coughing, the smoke being expelled from his lungs back out into the car.“Yeahhh pass that shit”.

Mickey had gone more than enough days on a limited number of smokes, and he’s fucking feelin it.

He reaches back to take the makeshift bong from Damon, as Ian throws a hand out to steady the steering wheel.  Mickey holds a lighter up to the already packed bowl and takes a deep hit, ready to relax. Especially after that tense moment with the police officer not so long ago.

He passes it to Ian when he’s done, as Damon watches and then grumbles from the backseat, “Don’t fuckin drop that shit”.

Mickey watches Ian wrap his lips around the mouthpiece and breathe in deeply, the bong water gurgling noisily from his pull.

Those fucking lips…God damn. He remembers what they did to him last night, and doesn’t hesitate to share his new train of thought. It’s time for another escape.

“There’s something else I wanna hit”.

He pulls the Jeep into a clearing by a metal route 66 sign, with a lone tree standing nearby that Damon can fuck off to. Good enough.

He kills the engine and turns around to his former cellmate, now working through one of the last bags of Cheetos, “Yo, go take a leak”.

Damon answers through of mouthful of the cheesy snack, “Don’t need to”.

Mickey looks back at him with disbelief at his aggravating stupidity, “Go…do yoga, sing fuckin Taylor Swift! I don’t give a shit, get out of the fuckin car!”

Damon frowns, turning his gaze onto Ian, who’s eyes flicker back somewhat uncomfortably, waiting for the guy to take a fucking hint.

“Go!” Mickey pushes again, and Damon finally steps out the Jeep, slamming the door closed behind him. He knocks on the dark window that Mickey is sitting behind as he passes and then gives him the double bird.

But he finally walks off in the direction of the tree, and Mickey looks over towards Ian, unable to hold the delight from showing on his face, unable to keep his hands off of him any longer.


	8. Auburn, Ivory, and Emerald Green

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The *extended* car sex scene
> 
> rated Explicit

Mickey turns away from Damon’s disappearing form towards Ian’s present one, an uncontrollable grin spreading across his face. His eyes flicker up and down his lover’s body just once before he leans forward, flicking his finger, “C’mere”.

Ian presses back into the kiss that Mickey initiates, following his command. Their mouths meet with a burning heat, and it’s actually hot as fuck, but Mickey feels himself smiling into it anyways, like he’s some fucking kid getting his very first kiss.

He thinks he could kiss Ian every day like this for the rest of his fucking life, and never get sick of it, after missing it for almost two long and agonizing years.

They pull their lips apart to rearrange themselves in the car so they can fuck. Mickey presses himself up against the seat of the car and faces backwards while Ian awkwardly moves his long and lean body into place behind him.

Mickey grips the back of the seat, fucking loving even just the sensation of having Ian behind him, and he waits eagerly for Ian to get things started.

Ian says something from behind him though, “Hey I bottom now too if you wanna switch things up”.

Mickey registers this information with mild surprise, but then shakes the forming image from his head quickly, arousal quickly covering any jealousy he might have. He’s not gonna picture Ian with some other guy, not now.

He wrinkles his forehead and denies the offer with absolute certainty and amusement, “If I wanted to fuck a guy in the ass, I would have stayed in prison”.

He didn’t care how fucking good it felt to push his cock inside a tight ass, nothing compared to having Ian’s nine inches inside of his.

Ian yanks Mickey’s pants down from behind him and Mickey feels the tip of his dick bump up against his ass, clearly already hard as a rock.

“Get the lube bitch” he reminds Ian, sticking his tongue out playfully.

“Didn’t need it last night”, Ian breathes into his ear hotly, but he reaches back for it anyways.

Mickey hears a cap snap open and then closed again, and the sound of a condom wrapper being ripped open before Ian presses back against him, moving his jacket out of the way so nothing stands between him and Mickey’s ass.

Mickey hears Ian shifting behind him again but before he asks what the hell is taking so long, he feels Ian’s mouth press against his ass, rimming him gently with his tongue.

Mickey sucks in his breath at the resulting sensation, pleasure rippling throughout his entire body.

“This is what you wanted, right?” Ian says darkly, “some ass eating?”

Mickey isn’t able to answer, and Ian speaks again, his voice low and filled with arousal, “And some nipple pinching?” Mickey feels a hand reaching underneath his shirt.

He sucks in his stomach as Ian’s hand works its way up to his nipple, pinching it tightly, his mouth and tongue then relocating back to Mickey’s tight hole.

A jolting but delicious pain travels like live electricity, from Mickey’s nipple straight down towards his cock. “ _Fuuhhh_ ” Mickey breathes out shakily and closes his eyes, unable to get the _ckkk_ sound out of his mouth.

Ian teases him mercilessly like this for a few minutes until Mickey’s ass is almost dripping with saliva, and then, confident with both the amount of saliva and the lube on his cock, he thrusts into Mickey without warning.

He surprises him with the penetration, and Mickey lets out a gasp that quickly turns into a moan.

The generous amount of lubrication lets Ian glide in and out of his tight ass as he continues, grunting from the indescribable feeling. Similar sounds are coming out of Mickey’s own mouth, his fingers gripping deeply into the back of the seat for support.

The movement is so smooth and steady that even with so little space between them, as they are jammed against the front seats, Mickey is able to thrust his ass backwards to meet every single one of Ian’s strong incoming pumps.

“Work that ass”, Mickey hears Ian hiss hotly, and an open palm slaps his ass cheek hard, his flesh reddening quickly from the impact.

The Jeeps rocks and shakes violently while they thrust forward and backwards in unison, Mickey spurred on even more by Ian’s order.

 _“I’m gonna cum Mick_!” Ian practically yells, biting into his shoulder afterwards. Mickey feels a drip of saliva, and Ian’s hot tongue against his skin.

“Fucking go for it!” he shouts back, fucking loving the pain and pleasure coursing through his body.

“ _I’ll finish you OFF AFTER_ ”

Before Mickey can respond, Ian’s thrusts become erratic and wild, and then he stops moving completely, groaning loudly as he finally releases deep inside of Mickey.

He stays there for a moment or so, both of them still enjoying the sensation of fullness, before Ian starts to go soft, and pulls out. He carefully removes his condom, and opens the car door just a tad to toss it onto the ground outside.

Mickey rolls against the seat to face him again, still completely erect, with precum leaking eagerly from his cock. Ian closes the car door, and then starts to move his mouth downwards, his eyes drawn by the sight of Mickey’s straining erection, but Mickey stops him.

 “No…jerk me off”.

Ian hesitates, still lingering by his cock, “The whole point was for me to catch your mess”.

Mickey laughs, “I’ll wipe it off”. But then more seriously adds, sliding his tongue across his bottom lip as he does, “I wanna be looking into your eyes when I come. Right here”. He pulls Ian’s face upwards and closer to his own, locking in his gaze.

Ian complies with his request and after dribbling more lube over Mickey’s cock, grips it with his strong hand, still maintaining unwavering eye contact with Mickey.

Mickey is already close to finishing from the earlier penetration, and his eyes threaten to roll back into his head as Ian pumps his hand up down over his cock with an unrelenting grip, but he forces them to stay locked onto Ian’s.

Ian looks back at him through dark green eyes, filled with fire. It’s the hottest fucking experience Mickey could imagine, even better than he had thought it would be.

Mickey’s stomach involuntarily tightens and then jerks inwards as he orgasms, and cum shoots out over Ian’s hand, the excess landing on their jackets, and Mickey’s bare stomach.

They finally break their intense eye contact after another long moment, each one looking for something different in the other’s eyes, and then Mickey reaches forward in his seat to grab some fast food napkins so they can clean up.

When Damon returns to the car, after being signalled with a whistle from Mickey that he was now allowed to do so, he wrinkles his nose in mild disgust as he throws himself into the back seat.

“Reeks of sex in here man”.

Mickey lifts his shoulders in exaggeration as if he’s sorry, but sarcastically adds, “Like I give a shit”.

Extremely satisfied, he winks at Ian and then pulls back onto the highway, hitting the gas pedal hard.


	9. I Found Jesus

They continue driving until they eventually reach a gas station with a small grocery store in front of it, badly in need of some fuel. Ian’s phone starts to ring as he gets out of the Jeep to refill it with gas. He answers it as he slams the door closed behind him, and Mickey glances in the rear-view mirror to see Damon cocking a suspicious eyebrow at him.

Mickey frowns at the look of distrust on his face, “He’s not gonna fuckin say anything. Let’s go and get some food while he gets gas”. He grabs a couple bills from the small wad of cash Ian had left in the car for them to use, from what he apparently had brought with him in his wallet, and the two of them step out of the car.

Mickey calls back to Ian as he and Damon walk towards the store, thinking he should see if there’s anything he wants in particular, “Hey! Gettin pork rinds and a 40, you want something?” Ian thinks for a second before answering with, “Uhh…coffee and a Kind bar”.

Mickey can’t help but smirk, fucking Ian. On the road with two escaped convicts and he wants _a fucking Kind bar_.

“ _Awwh,_ fuckin pussy!” he teases, but the Kind bar is the first thing he grabs when they get inside. He then quickly fills a basket with some other things for them to eat on the road, whatever’s cheap and loaded with calories, while Damon does the same.

They approach the cashier with their full baskets, but before Mickey can pull the cash out of his pocket to pay for everything, Damon pulls out _a fucking gun_ and aims a round into the air without warning.

Mickey looks up in shock and then immediately panics, realizing the situation Damon has just fucking put them in. What the _hell_ is the matter with this fucking idiot?! He sees the cashier reaching for a gun hidden underneath the counter.

_“Go! Go! Go! Go!”_   he hollers, as he darts out of the fucking store desperately and towards the Jeep, struggling to carry the heavy basket while he does. “Drive the car, _drive the car!”_ he yells to Ian, who swears at the sight of them and scrambles around from the gas pump to jump into the driver’s seat.

Mickey drops the basket in panic as the cashier comes raging out of the store like an angry bull with the gun, screaming, “YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”

Damon and Mickey barely make it into the car in time and immediately slam the doors shut as Ian hits the gas hard, the Jeeps’ tires screeching as it whips back onto the road.

Angry bullets peg against the car and shatter one of it’s rear view mirrors, as Ian swears and Mickey reaches back against his seat to wail on Damon the best he can from his position, “ _You…fucking…dumb…fuck!”_ “You told me you were getting food!” Ian accuses angrily, aiming his own punch at Mickey, now insanely pissed off.

“I was til shit for brains here pulled his Glock out!” Mickey pants in frustration, and with wide and angry eyes he stares at Damon in disbelief, trying to hold himself back from killing him. Damon holds his hands up as if he’s innocent and stupidly argues back, “I thought when you said we was getting gas, we was gonna rob the fucking thing!”

“I MEANT WE WERE GETTING FUCKING GAS” Mickey screams back, his face reddening with rage.

He throws himself back around in his seat and breathes out of his nose angrily. Holding himself back from murdering Damon takes just about every fucking ounce of strength that he’s got. Stupid motherfucker just about ruined everything for them for no fucking reason.

He’s on thin fucking ice.

They drive in silence for a while as the heavy tension in the car abates, and eventually Ian says quietly, “We gotta ditch the car, it’s covered in bullet holes Mick”.

Mickey groans, knowing the attention the battered car will draw to them. He can’t risk having any reason for a cop to pull them over. He’s too close to freedom with Ian now.

“I know…pull over in this lot up here. We’ll have to find something else”.

He says more pointedly towards Damon again as they empty their belongings from the bullet-ridden Jeep, “We need new wheels in case anyone made us back there”.

Damon chuckles back as if it’s fucking funny, “Sounds about right”, and Mickey is tempted to throttle him again.

Luckily, he then spots an easy target for them just ahead, an old green station wagon with the driver’s window rolled down to let in air. Nobody’s gonna be in a huge rush to track down this piece of shit. “Alright, green one” he says, and points to it.

Damon reaches an arm out and stops him from approaching it, and Mickey looks at him with an eyebrow raised in confusion, wondering why he is still fucking testing him. “Oh hell no, look at this Camaro” Damon says with admiration, alluding as to why he stopped Mickey.

Mickey looks.

_Jesus Christ._

He points at the station wagon again, “Dumbass, the window on the green one is down, there’s no alarm”.

“ _But it’s so beautiful_ …” Damon approaches the Camaro with reverie, and that’s when Mickey decides he is done with this fucking idiot. Done. Not gonna waste another minute with this stupid asshole that’s apparently bent on landing them back in prison for the rest of their lives.

“Damon, you’re on lookout”.

Motherfucker can find his own fucking way to Mexico, Mickey’s already got the address of the coyote from Carlos, and he doesn’t need him for anything else. He looks back at Ian, who now has a cigarette dangling from his mouth, his gray hoodie pulled up over his bright red hair. “Come on”.

Ian doesn’t argue, and once they reach the station wagon Mickey forces the window down far enough with his fingers, to reach in and unlock the door. They clamber inside, and he forces the steering wheel back roughly to reveal a set of wires, trying to remember exactly how to do this.

“C’mon hurry up” Ian says quietly, nervously.

Mickey answers with frustration, “I’m a little out of practice”. He fiddles with the wires and is surprised to hear Ian giving his input, while he points a directing finger towards the wires, “No, you gotta…it’s the other-“

Mickey interrupts him, “Do I tell you how to do EMT shit?” He cuts Ian’s following protest off too, “Leave the goddamn stealing to the experts”. Ian surprises him yet again, by shoving him out of the way so he can reach the wires himself.

Mickey raises an eyebrow swiftly, eyes lit with warning. But he decides to let Ian do whatever the fuck he’s doing, and the car miraculously comes to life a moment later. Mickey can’t believe it. Ian really had changed…

He wonders what sort of illegal shit he got up to in the South Side while he was locked up. Ian looks back at him cockily, and Mickey can’t help but smile, admittedly impressed. Maybe a little turned on.

“Let’s go.” He hits the gas pedal to drift them out of the parking lot, “Hope Damon knows how to hitchhike”.

“We’re ditching him?” Ian sounds almost unsure at first, but Mickey knows his cellmate well enough by now to know it’s their only option. He’s not gonna redeem himself.

“Mouth breather’s gonna get us arrested or killed, better it’s just us” he explains. Ian relaxes, unable to argue with that logic. Not after witnessing Damon’s fantastic display of stupidity at the gas station.

Mickey brings the station wagon to a crawl as they reach Damon, who is still standing close enough to the Camaro to continue admiring it while he is on ‘look out’. “ _Adios motherfucker_!” Mickey yells, flipping him off while Ian throws up his hands to Damon as if he is truly sorry, and had absolutely nothing to do with it. _Not._ They tear out of the parking lot, hearing Damon exclaim after them, “Mickey! _What the fu_ …” until they are far enough away that they can no longer hear his complaints.

They drive straight through Texas to the address Carlos had given Mickey of the coyote who could get them into Mexico, trying to make up for travel time lost due to the debacle at the gas station.

But Ian sounds a little doubtful as they pull up to the house that has a yard filled with people at some kind of party, with pink balloons and shit. “So how is this guy gonna sneak us into Mexico?”

Mickey doesn’t lie at this point, “Fuck if I know”. This sort of thing is completely beyond his realm of criminal expertise, “Piñata?”

He grabs a plate without stopping from one of the guest’s tables as they walk through the party, and after taking a mouthful of the warm food jokes, “These are pretty good beans man, guess they don’t call them beaners for nothing huh?” He laughs before dumping the plate back into a nearby trash can, as he spots a group of men that look like they are most likely the ones he is here for. 

He hears Ian start to falter beside him as they approach, asking if they should be barging in like this, but Mickey cuts him off, eyeing the crowd with determination. “Hey which one of you guys is Jesús?”

A man as short as he is, but much thicker and heavier weighted, with an expensive watch adorning his wrist, addresses him through serious eyes, “I’m Jesus”.

He takes a sip of his drink, eyeing Mickey. Mickey eyes him back, “Oh”.

Not really what he expected. Oh well.

“Never though I’d say this, but I’m glad I finally found Jesus”.


	10. Say Our Prayers, and Live in a Lie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is based pretty much entirely on scenes we actually fully saw, which of course, can't be ignored, as much as I feel I'm just copying the script from the show.

Mickey pulls a chair up in front of the group of men a while later, and specifically addresses Jesus, who is now somewhat more comfortable with the boy’s presence once they made it clear they weren’t here to start shit.

“Carlos gave me your name” Mickey explains.

Jesus sits across from in him in a recliner, his fingers tipped to his chin as if he’s the fucking Godfather or some shit. He might not be far off though, who fuckin knows.

“Which Carlos? I know _thirty_ of them”. He seems to find Mickey’s previous statement pretty stupid.

“Cook County Correctional” Mickey specifies, waiting as patiently as he can to find out how on earth this dude will get him and Ian safely across the border.

It’s not specific enough apparently, as Jesus smirks, “Well that narrows it down to four”.

Mickey is now getting impatient and cuts right to the chase, “We need a coyote”.

“For what?” He glances from Mickey to Ian, and then back again, taking in the color of their skin, clearly confused.

_Jesus Christ._ “To sneak us across the border”.

Mickey restrains himself from adding any expletives to the sentence, reminding himself that he needs this guy to get him and Ian to Mexico safely, and it’s probably better if he doesn’t piss him off beforehand.

Jesus gestures around himself, “You’re already across the border”.

Ian finally speaks up to try and help move the conversation forward, seeing Mickey getting worked up, “No the uh, other side”.

“You want me to sneak you into _México_?” Jesus looks at them with disbelief.

Mickey stares back at him, eyebrows raised sharply, “Yeah. I want you to do whatever you do…backwards”. He can’t help but say this in a way that’s maybe slightly offensive, but Jesus lets it slide, staring at Mickey in a way that makes him slightly uncomfortable as he tries to decipher what the reasoning behind it is.

Jesus’ face suddenly lights up with recognition, and he laughs incredulously, “You’re that one from the news, that made the prison chick fall for you”.

Mickey’s eyes drift away for a moment as he thinks of Aurora. Hopes she is okay, wherever she is now… Jesus laughs again heartily, yanking his thoughts back to the present. “What she ever see in you, _ese_?” he asks while looking at Mickey, clearly unimpressed.

Mickey retorts with a heavy dose of sarcasm, “Well I could whip it out but I don’t wanna scare all the kids”. He gestures back with one hand at the kids and teenagers dancing and playing behind him, one of which who is clearly the daughter this party is for.

Jesus stops laughing, and firmly sets his jaw, before his daughter begins to wave him over. He holds his fingers up, signifying he’ll be right there, and then turns his gaze back onto Mickey, “it’s time for me to dance with my little girl”. He gets up to leave, and Mickey freezes.

Ian speaks up, “So that’s it?”

Something in his tone as he asks this makes Jesus stop in his path for a moment, and he shrugs in response, “You get caught with a fugitive, that’s federal time”.

He starts to make his way towards his daughter again and Mickey stops him for a second time, rapidly panicking, “ _Whoa whoa whoa_ , what am I supposed to do??”

“It’s not my problem homie, you’re on your fucking own”. Jesus is over the conversation, and clearly unconcerned with their dire situation.

Anger starts to boil upwards inside of Mickey, and fear, and the ugly combination of the two rear their head in unison, causing him to lose his control, “ _The fuck you say to me?”_

Ian halts Mickey’s aggressive advance towards the man, and Mickey knows he is lucky that he does, as he takes in all the Mexican men now looking back at him.

They look like they wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if Jesus asked them to.

Ian holds back Mickey’s arms, restraining him. “Come on, come on… Let’s _go_ ”.

Ian pushes the words from his mouth in a commanding tone, and Mickey knows he has no other fucking option. He follows Ian back to the car unhappily, disappointment and worry now filling his mind as they continue the long drive towards Mexico.

They reach Texas’s Route 44 before Ian finally brings up the ultimate issue again, one that had already been swimming around in Mickey’s head non- stop from the very moment that they left the house.

“We still have to figure out a way to get across the border…could try swimming over?” He raises his hand slightly at this suggestion, feeling it’s a conceivable option.

There’s a sick feeling in the pit of Mickey’s stomach as he answers, “Never learned how”.

He had hoped he would learn how to with Ian, in the beaches of Mexico.

Ian seems genuinely surprised by this fact, “Seriously?” Mickey shoots him a look.

Why the fuck would he make that up?

Ian drops it, “Huh. Well, we could try driving”.

He says it so nonchalantly that Mickey finds it fucking hard to believe he isn’t grasping the severity of the situation, and points out the very obvious reason why he at least can’t, “They probably have my picture posted all over the border crossing”.

Ian looks at him in silence as they both remember what Jesus said about doing time after getting caught with a fugitive.

A fugitive.

That’s what he is now.

“Yeah, yeah…” Ian answers slowly, realizing that it’s not a viable option.

“We need to get some real money man” Mickey wonders if it’s possible to find somebody to pay to smuggle them over the border, someone other than Jesus. There had to be other fuckers running those operations, difficult as they may be to track down. Currently it seems like the only option they have left.

“Fuck” Mickey rubs his hand across his forehead in frustration, pressing his fingers into his skin hard as he makes up his mind. “Alright”. He grabs one of the guns he had from the bag Alejandro had packed for him and reloads it, “That bar we passed back there”.

It’s fucking risky and stupid but there’s no other fucking option. They are gonna have to rob some place, get enough cash to get the hell out of the states.

“Are you fucking nuts?” Ian demands, in response.

“What?”

Mickey thinks it’s now pretty clear that they have no other fucking choice.

Ian sounds exasperated, “This is Texas, everybody here is packing”. “You gotta better idea how to get cash?” Mickey asks sarcastically, frustrated.

“Yeah” Ian says blankly as if Mickey’s stupid, “the bank”.

Mickey is taken aback for a second. God damn Gallagher had grown some balls while Mickey had been locked away in the joint.

“Oh, check it out, Ian Gallagher putting his big boy pants on”. His eyes flicker over Ian for a moment, finding it kinda hot how easily Ian had suggested the Bonnie and Clyde-esque heist.

Ian just grins.

They reach a bank, and Mickey cracks his knuckles before he goes inside after Ian, considering how this might play out. He really fucking hopes he doesn’t have to shoot anybody, but more than that he hopes they get out safely.

He follows Ian to service counter, where Ian begins scribbling something on a piece of paper, what Mickey assumes it’s a ransom note. It’s go time.

He starts to quickly yank a black ski mask from his duffel bag up over his face, but Ian looks at him in panic and yanks it off before anyone around them notices.

“ _Put, the mask away._ You’re already on camera”.

He thrusts the mask back against Mickey’s chest, who takes it uncertainly, his eyes drifting uneasily towards the security guard in the bank, and then to the camera mounted on the wall.

“Fuck”. He bites his lip, unsure of what to do next, “Alright… you cover rent a cop… I’ll go get the money”.

Ian surprises him yet again by stopping him in his tracks, “ _I’ll handle the teller!”_ he says this quietly but firmly, locking eyes with Mickey as he does so he can see that he’s not bullshitting, “ _Alright?_ We do this my way. No guns”. He looks pissed off as he reiterates this.

Mickey shifts slightly in disbelief, “Alright tough guy… let’s see what you got”. He’s actually fucking curious now, adding, “Hey, tell her if she puts a dye pack in the money, we’ll find her house and chop up her kids”. This entire situation is completely throwing him off, and he’s not even sure himself right now if he’s joking or not, at this point. This whole thing feels like some cheesy movie, unreal.  

Ian walks up to the bank counter, and Mickey trails after him and then stands beside him like some kind of a guard dog while the teller addresses Ian. Ian simply slides the note towards her, “Just… read the note”.

“You want this in cash?”

Mickey yanks his eyes away from the security guard, and back to the teller. _Jesus Christ_ Ian had no fucking clue how to do a hold up. Had he never even watched a fucking bank robbery movie? Fuck.

“No, we want you to pick out fucking stocks for us. Move your ass” Mickey says sarcastically, crossing his arms firmly. He ignores her look of annoyance in response to his rude comment, as well as Ian’s.

“Swipe your card please” she says to Ian, as politely as she can after the slight.

Mickey smiles. Here we go. This is it, time to see Gallagher pull out the big guns.

Ian pulls out… a fucking debit card.

“What the fuck…” Mickey looks uncertainly from Ian to the teller, nervously wondering what the fuck is going on. “You didn’t think I was actually gonna rob the place?” Ian whispers.

He shrugs, yeah, he kinda fucking did! Ian clarifies, “I have a savings account”.

Mickey shoulders drop slightly as he looks at him, a realization now dawning on him once again about how much Ian had changed while they were apart, “You got a bank account?”

“I’ve been working for a year” Ian sighs.

Mickey can’t pull his confused eyes away from the expression on his face until the teller speaks again, drawing both Ian and Mickey’s attention back to her, “This is all the money in your account Mr. Gallagher. Are you sure you want to close it?”

Mickey stands there quietly, suddenly feeling worried as Ian looks at him, thinking. Whether it was worth it or not.

Maybe waiting to see if Mickey would answer yes for him, or tell him, “just do it!” But he won’t. It’s Ian’s money, not his. He would never make him do anything that he didn’t want to. There would be other ways to get money if Ian didn’t want to do this.

Ian finally answers, seeming sure, “Yeah. All of it”.

He smiles when he says it.


	11. High and Dry

Ian drives onwards towards their destination until it’s dark out, and until they find a covered bridge over a small gorge in the landscape that offers them a private place to spend the night.

They park the car down below and climb up the ridge together, Mickey going first and offering Ian a hand to pull himself up at all the weak spots.

They spread out the blanket that they’ve used so much during their journey already, and sit under the night sky for a while, drinking a couple beers they had picked up after Ian got his cash from the bank, and smoking some cigarettes. They had picked up a lantern from a hardware store too, so they had some light.

Mickey tips his beer bottle in his hand, now finding it completely empty. He’d been filling himself with booze and smoke for the past hour, grateful to have access to them again, but they aren’t helping.

A melancholy feeling had fallen over him at the same time as the night fell, and he can’t seem shake it.

His initial shock, and then joy, at Ian coming with him on this escape mission, is no longer covering the sadness that still aches deeply inside of him from his time in prison.

He tries to shove it aside again, figuring another beer will help.

“Hey, pass me another” he says to Ian, lifting the empty bottle to show him before placing it down on the grass behind himself.

He takes the beer Ian is offering from his outstretched hand, but then he looks at Ian drinking his own, casually looking out ahead into the darkness, and he can’t fucking help himself.

He punches Ian’s arm hard, anger and hurt driving it.

Ian complains into his bottle, “ _Oww_ ” and then, “what the fuck was that for?” he demands from Mickey, who in some way feels like he should already fucking know.

“You never fucking visited me”.

And there it was. Out in the open. Like he had finally peeled back some armor to show he had a gaping wound hidden underneath it.

He looks at Ian sadly for a long moment, who looks back at him through confused eyes. Mickey looks away, frustrated, putting his focus back into his cigarette. It was useless bringing this up, and he’s annoyed at himself for doing it.

Ian finally mumbles a response, his now voice layered with guilt, “It was… hard seeing you...”

Mickey’s eyebrows shoot back up, and he looks at Ian in disbelief.

Was he fucking serious right now?

Did he have any fucking clue what it was like in there for _Mickey_? How many _fucking nights_ he laid there crying like a bitch, or wishing he could just fucking _die_ rather than be alone in there, feeling like Ian didn’t give a _shit_ about him?

Ian tries to look back at him, apologetically, but seems to find himself unable to hold eye contact, as he adds while looking at downwards, “That glass…”. He shakes his head at the thought of it.

Mickey looks down at the ground himself, unsure of what to fucking say or even fucking think.

He feels Ian’s eyes on him again but doesn’t look back, eventually taking a long pull from his cigarette as smoke hovers lazily in the air between them. He hadn’t considered much that Ian might have been unhappy seeing him in there.

“We better get moving if we want to be at the border by morning” Ian finally says a few moments later, cutting the silence.

Mickey looks back at him, no longer angry, just thoughtful.

“Doesn’t really matter when we get there” His voice is thick when he says it, and he offers Ian his cigarette, who takes it. “As long as we keep border patrol from recognizing me”.

“You havin second thoughts?” Ian asks him sincerely, mistaking his reasoning for not caring when he got there.

Mickey wrinkles his forehead at the ridiculous suggestion, “Fuck no”.

He glances at Ian before adding, “What am I leaving behind, my family?” He thinks of Terry, of his half brothers, of his sister Mandy, now long gone. He looks down, “Who cares if I never see those shitheads again…you had my back more than they ever did”.

Ian’s eyes drift over to him as he says this, because it’s absolutely true, and they both know it.  

Part of Mickey’s undeniable loyalty and pull towards Ian would always be because of what he was to him, when Mickey had no one else by his side, when no one else wanted him.

Mickey falls back onto the blanket to look up at the night sky and Ian joins him, groaning as he stretches out on the uneven ground.

Mickey looks through the steel bridge’s gaps to the bright white moon hanging in the sky above them, illuminating the ground in delicate blue light, still thinking about what he was like what Ian came into his life.

“Hey, you ever think back in the day…” He gestures with one hand up into the starry sky in front of them, “That this is where we’d be?” He can barely believe it himself, as he takes the thought in, dropping his hands to rest on his stomach with contentment as he considers it all.

Ian sounds amused, “You running from the feds…yeah I could have predicted that sh-“

Mickey raises an arm jokingly as if he’s gonna backhand Ian, but instead just gently nudges him with his elbow, who laughs softly in response. Mickey grins upwards for a moment before he turns his head and looks at Ian, laying beside him, eyes still fixed on the sky.

Mickey joins his gaze upwards onto the stars again, his mouth opening and closing as he struggles to finally ask the question. The question that admits to the fear that he had felt every single day in prison, every day, while he ached for Ian to come see him.

Finally, he manages to free the question from his mouth, that had been swirling in his mind ever since he first saw Ian again, that day under the bleachers.

“ _You ever think about me?”_

He shifts his shoulder slightly as the words come out, sad, and really wondering.

He hears Ian shift slightly to look at him and he clarifies without looking back, “When I was in the joint?”

There is a long silence that the crickets around them attempt to fill, but Mickey feels completely empty until Ian finally answers, gently.

“A lot”.

Mickey breaths out heavily, some sad relief flooding into his very heavy chest. His eyes fill but the tears don’t form, as more vulnerable words come from his mouth, unable to hold them back anymore.

_“Fuck I missed you”._

He’d said it before, each time that he got out of juvie, actually.

But the words now held so much more weight, so much more meaning, and his voice that is thick with emotion doesn’t hide that fact.

Ian doesn’t say anything back, but he doesn’t need to.

As they there underneath the night sky, drinking in the fullness of the moon and the beauty of each other’s company, Mickey’s heard almost exactly what he needed to.

And for now, it’s enough.

He curls against Ian to sleep that night, easily drifting into a peaceful rest, but sensing Ian is unable to. He’s barely awake, but he could swear he heard Ian whisper right before he caved in to a deep sleep,

 “ _I’m sorry_ ”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to add that in at the end, even if it wasn't in the show, as someone commented a while back Mickey deserved an apology, not just for the past, but for what was still to come


	12. Ephemerality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ephemerality is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly.

Mickey wakes up the next morning feeling the comfortable weight of Ian’s still slumbering body against his own.

He had spent the night being held in Ian’s strong arms, on top of the thick blanket and underneath the stars once again. It would have been warmer and possibly more comfortable to sleep in the car, but Mickey didn’t want to sleep in a confined space again for a very long time. Now free from prison, he could fall asleep every night for the rest of his fucking life just like this, with Ian sleeping next to him, and die a very happy man.

Mickey wakes Ian, and they walk back to the station wagon hand in hand, ready to make the last stretch of their journey.

A journey into a brand-new life.

Ian starts out driving the car that day, continuing through the Texas expanses, until they reach a more populated area with an outlet mall. Mickey looks at him as he parks the car in the surrounding lot, with a question in his eyes, and Ian says back gently, “We need to disguise you Mick”.

Mickey winces, and then sighs, weakly trying to make light of the situation, “Jesus Christ, I thought nobody was gonna ask me to wear a dress”. He’s referring to a moment the two boys had shared long ago, the night Mickey had come out to his dad and the entire Alibi Room, starting a massive brawl in response.

Ian just looks at him solemnly, neither boy finding the thought that once seemed hilarious the least bit humorous now, with Mickey having no other options left to choose from. They both drop their eyes as they head into the mall.

Ian helps Mickey find clothes that will hide his masculine features the most, some boots, and a longer wig. They ask a lady standing by one of the makeup counters to do some light touch-ups on Mickey, to make him look a little more feminine. She doesn’t ask, but Ian tells her its for a social experiment, trying to make Mickey feel a little more comfortable as he sits in the chair looking pale and drawn.  

You would think that it would be funny for Ian to see Mickey Milkovich, once the undeniable badass of the South Side, sitting in a makeup chair, having just a touch of coverup applied delicately to his face by a makeup artist, but it’s actually heartbreaking for Ian to see him sitting there, so deeply unhappy, and so worried.

Mickey steps down from the chair when the artist is done, refusing to look at himself in the mirror that she offers with a shake of his hand, and takes the bag of clothes back from Ian, who was holding them as he waited.

They head towards the mall bathroom for Mickey to put on the rest of his disguise.

Both of them are currently experiencing inner turmoil, and a whirlwind of emotions. The death of an old life, and all they have ever known, is approaching them quickly.

Mickey doesn’t know exactly what Ian is feeling, but even though every single thought of his own is tinged with the fear of being caught, a deep inner peace still rests within him knowing that soon they will be at the ocean, ready to spend the rest of their lives together.

It’s all he’s ever really wanted, and it only took a couple years of knowing Ian for him to realize that. For Mickey, this is his happy ending. If they can just get through the very last trial, the border crossing.

When Mickey comes out back out of the bathroom stall, he is wearing women’s clothes that are classy and dark, chosen by Ian because they aren’t too over the top. The subtle makeup lightens his skin and enhances his eyes, but he can’t bring himself to look at Ian directly.

Ian bites his lip as he takes in Mickey’s appearance, feeling they’ve done the best they can but still looking worried. And still hurting, seeing how much Mickey is hating this. He takes Mickey’s hand, who doesn’t pull away, and gives him a reassuring kiss on the forehead before they leave.

They drive the rest of the way to the border quietly, Mickey now driving the car with one hand on the steering wheel, and the other holding Ian’s tightly.

His unhappiness at wearing the disguise wears off quite bit due to the nerves now knotting his stomach, as the border to Mexico comes into their sight. He stops the car far enough away from the actual crossing station so they can finish getting ready without the officers actually seeing them closely enough to notice anything unusual.

Mickey knows they are out of time now, and have to get out of the United States as quickly as possible, his statement to Ian last night about it not really mattering when they arrived being untrue.

And they both knew that.

He finally reluctantly looks at his reflection in the rear-view mirror of the car while Ian stands outside, leaning against the hood of the car while he waits.

“Just play it cool, tell them we’re going on vacation” he reminds Ian, whose silence he assumes is also due to nerves. Mickey feels a little ridiculous and a little uncertain as he considers his reflection, barely recognizing himself anymore, “Oh fuck….do you see my stubble?”

In the bright daylight, it seems more obvious than he was hoping it would be.

He gets out of the car and walks around to use the car door window to view his reflection instead of the mirror, finding it less disturbing that way, more out of focus. He clips the fake earrings on the way the woman in the store had showed him to, “If they stop us, my name’s still Mickey”.

He’s not willing to give that last part of himself up, “There’s chicks named Mickey, right?”

Ian doesn’t answer, but Mickey is so focused on getting his appearance as convincing as he can that he doesn’t notice.

The only thing left now is for him to put on the wig, and it sits inside of the car still, Mickey wanting to leave putting the ridiculous thing on to the very last moment. Someday they’d laugh about this, over pina coladas, he thinks.

He addresses Ian again, “Alright, you’re drivin”. Ian had nodded in agreement to this on the way, when Mickey told him they would probably pay more attention to the driver than the passenger, especially if he just appeared to be Ian’s quiet wife.

Mickey opens the car door to get in, but notices Ian still hasn’t moved or spoken, and is looking off into the distance distractedly.  Mickey closes the door, and walks over “What’s the matter with you? Let’s go”.

Silence.

He wonders if Ian is feeling sick from nerves… if they fuck this up, if Mickey is recognized, it’s the end of the line for both of them.

But when he gets around to check and looks at his face, that’s not it. He can’t tell what it is. He doesn’t understand, and Ian’s eyes finally drift over to him as he stands there, waiting.

“I can’t”.

The words come out of Ian’s mouth, but Mickey doesn’t really register them. He looks to the actual border crossing and then back again in confusion, trying to figure out what Ian means, “You can’t? Get behind the wheel, and drive the damn car”.

The plan seems pretty fucking simple to Mickey, and Ian’s continued silence is agitating him slightly, they need to get going already. Standing here for too fucking long will start to look suspicious.

Ian sighs heavily, and looks at the ground as if he is carrying a very heavy weight. He looks back up into Mickey’s eyes, wanting him to understand something but not wanting to say it, and Mickey sees hesitation lining his entire face.

“Ian, we’re one step from the finish line” Mickey says softly.

Ian reaches down, and hands something from his pocket towards Mickey, who sees that it’s a thick wad of fucking cash.

And then he realizes.

Ian’s not coming with him.

He backs away from the money like it’s some kind of a poisonous snake and tries to knock it out of Ian’s hands as he begins to panic, “The fuck is that- _I don’t want your fucking money_!”

They way Ian is holding it out towards him makes him feel like bursting into tears. He tries again, “I want you to come with, _me…_ ” Ian turns away even as Mickey is saying it, and he hears his voice falter at the last word, simultaneously breaking as something else inside of him does, his chest starting to heave.

Mickey looks to the road and back again, his brain struggling to accept this newest development from Ian. He watches despondently as Ian tosses the bundle of cash back into the car, and then pulls his coat and backpack out of it, slowly looking up at Mickey with sincere apology filling his emerald green eyes.

“Don’t do this” Mickey says, shaking his head. Those words, once so hard for him to say, come out easily now, as Mickey feels fear and pain swelling inside of him.

_No._ This can’t be happening. Not after everything he went through to get here. 

Not after everything _they_ went through.

Ian approaches him and says something that seems to make the answer about what he should do clear to Mickey.

“I love you”.

“Then get in the fucking car” he answers, his voice thick with emotion as he stares at Ian, never imagining that hearing those words from Ian could bring him so much pain.

Ian struggles for a moment with his words before saying, “It’s _not-_ This isn’t me anymore”. His voice is then steady and calm as he continues, now sure of himself.

“I’m sorry”.

Mickey nods for a moment at the words that he hears, struggling to take this massive blow, still not really believing it, “That’s it huh?”

_This can’t be the end._

Ian reaches for him, but Mickey pulls away like a scared animal, huffing with uncertainty and pain for a moment before stopping in place, and looking back at Ian.

He takes in the red head through eyes threatening to fill with tears, and _really looks_ at him. He thinks hard for a moment, forcing himself back to the day in Chicago when an angry redhead had shown up in his bedroom with a crowbar, ready to fucking kill him.  

Everything they had been through since that moment, everything they had overcome.

The fear… the anger… the love… the laugher… the pain.

And there is nothing back there for Mickey anymore. The past is a time he cannot return to, not even if he wanted to…and he would, for Ian.

Ian wants to return home.

But Mickey can’t go with him.

Mickey bites his lip as he realizes that he has to let Ian go because that’s what _Ian wants_. He approaches him to accept the tender goodbye Ian had wanted to give, no longer keeping his overwhelming pain and fear at bay, and giving in to the one thing that can always protect him from it.

Their lips connect, and with eyes closed and mouths opened they kiss each other for one last precious time, no borders between them, as Ian’s strong hand holds Mickey’s aching head close to his own, as close as he possibly can.

Mickey raises his own hand to hold Ian’s face gently while they kiss, the warm and soft skin feeling so familiar beneath his rough fingertips. So loved.

And as they kiss, Mickey thinks of the boy he’s been falling for since the day he showed up in his bedroom with a crowbar.

Ian Gallagher.

He thinks of his entire family.

His house on Wallace Street, dysfunctional at times, but full of love.

The way he loves to smoke under the El…

…Or go for runs down Chicago’s busy streets.

His EMT jacket.

His open future of possibilities.

And he can’t ask Ian to give those things up.

He would never want to.

But it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t fucking kill him, to let him go.

Mickey finally ends the kiss, looking back into those green eyes that he loves just once more, before he completely pulls away, patting Ian’s cheek gently as he does. “Fuck you, _Gallagher_ ”.

He has to force himself to walk away powerfully, because he knows it’s the only way he’ll be able to fucking go. He could never calmly and easily walk away from this.

From Ian.

He swallows hard, and after one last long look at the tall redhead, the man he fell so deeply and unconditionally in love with, so long ago, he forces himself to get into the green station wagon, alone. He grabs the wig from where it’s been lying in the car and fixes it into place on his head as he starts the engine, not allowing his eyes to drift towards Ian’s again.

If he did, he wouldn’t be able to go.

He drives away from the place where they shared their very last embrace, from where Ian still stands, and then pulling directly up to the border crossing, he stops, handing the officers his fake ID. He listens to them move around the station wagon, doing their standard inspections, while he calmly stares only at the road ahead of him.  

All his nerves about being caught died back there in the dust, where Ian now stood.

He didn’t care if he got caught, now.

It didn’t matter to him anymore.

The officers wave him through the crossing, and he drives over the line from the United States into Mexico, completely alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel so sad just writing this again. For those of you that have been following the story, I do have three more chapters that will posted all together once they are edited (sometime in the next couple days). As a heads up, they will be pretty heavy.


	13. Cease to Begin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last three chapters cover Mickey’s first few days in Mexico. The warnings for this story change here as the subject material gets much darker. I didn’t think it would be realistic in any way to pretend that Mickey would be okay after what happened…at least not at first. Warnings now include severe drug/alcohol abuse, symptoms of overdose, graphic panic attacks, and themes of suicide. However, there is no major character death (bit of a spoiler I guess).

Driving over the United States border into Mexico signifies a lot more than just entering a new country for Mickey.

Than just escaping a long prison sentence.

He’s entering a whole new life.

A life without Ian.

He is eerily calm as he grips the steering wheel firmly while he drives, eyes never straying from the asphalt directly in front of him, and he passes through Nuevo Leon just as the sun starts to go down.

He is alone now, without the two passengers he had once imaged being on this journey with him, but he is currently unable to think of any plan other than the one he originally made with Miguel back in Chicago. So he continues to drive through the city of Monterrey, and pulls off of the wider roads into quieter ones as he reaches San Nicolas de los Garza, eventually passing through the working-class neighborhoods and into the ghetto.

Graffiti is littering the concrete walls that he drives past, many of them crumbling, and armed police cars with their sirens wailing rush past him towards unknown crime scenes.

It reminds him somewhat of his home back in the South-Side, but a much darker undertone of danger lines these streets, with Mickey knowing that if he went deep enough into them, he would come running into Mexico’s most infamous cartels.

Somehow, he is unfazed by the thought, and he continues driving forward as if he’s on autopilot.

When he sees a sign for “La Comodidad Hotel Monterrey” he pulls into the lot numbly, and parks the green station wagon.

He glances at the empty seat beside him where Ian had been sitting just hours earlier before he takes his small duffel bags of possessions out of the backseat, and walks up the dingy block of the motel towards the office, just as the night begins to fall into darkness.

A small Mexican man sits inside the hotel office on a metal stool behind the counter, smoking a pungent cigarette. He watches Mickey through hooded eyes as he enters. 

“I need a room” Mickey says quietly, dumping money onto the counter, hoping and assuming that he will accept American money.

The man uses one finger to slide away some of the bills towards himself, and then slowly swivels around in his stool to reach several pegs lined with keys on the wall behind him. He comes back around with a single key pinched tightly between his fingers and drops it on the counter.

Mickey picks it up and squints at the tiny number _14_ marked in shaky writing on the tag.

He leaves the office and walks back along the hotel block very slowly until he reaches a door with a number 14 on it.

He wiggles the key in the old lock until it opens, and pushes open the door, opening his view to the dark and unimpressive room. Not that he had expected anything different.

His mind still buzzes, strangely devoid of any thought or emotion. 

There’s a small single bed in the room, with a patterned blanket that looks homemade thrown over it haphazardly. A small round table is placed across the room with a plastic chair beside it, both looking like they belong to part of an old patio set.

The dirty window in his room is barred, with the curtains drawn tightly closed around it.

He closes the door behind himself, and drops his duffel bag down onto the bed before he heads into the tiny bathroom located at the back of his suite, his breath starting to quicken.

There’s a cheaply set up shower inside, with a plastic curtain hanging to keep water from splashing out of it. Only a narrow plastic lip separates the bathroom floor from the inside of the shower.

Mickey turns on the squeaky faucet over the sink and water trickles out of it. He catches some of the cold liquid into his hands and splashes it over his face.

He finally looks up into the mirror at his pale reflection.

Deadened blue eyes stare back at him from a face not quite his own.

Mickey yanks the ridiculous earrings off of his ears and drops them into a plastic waste bin on the floor, along with the wig just a moment later.

He struggles out of the black dress as quickly as possible, pulling off all of the clothes on his body desperately.

Desperate to see his actual self in the mirror.

Desperate to see something else in there looking back at him.

He is naked as he approaches the mirror again, under the blue and flickering bathroom light, mouth slightly open as he takes in his reflection again.

It’s him alright. Mickey Milkovich.

His pale muscular chest, his strong arms, his hands tattooed with FUCK U-UP gripping either edge of the sink.

His short jet-black hair above dark and sharply shaped eyebrows.

And those haunted blue eyes.

He feels an overwhelming sense of panic before he hears an animal like scream of pain tearing into the night, and it terrifies him.

It takes him a moment to realize the sound is erupting from himself, as he looks in the mirror and sees his mouth is stretched wide, letting the sound escape. The veins on his neck and forehead are straining so hard they look like they will dig themselves out from beneath his skin, as it quickly reddens.

He doesn’t want to see it anymore. Mickey smashes his head forwards into the bathroom mirror and it shatters, broken pieces clattering loudly into the sink, splattered with droplets of bright red blood from his nose.

Absolute panic is swelling inside of him, strangling him, and he can barely breathe as the scream is choked into silence from his throat.

He falls backwards out from the bathroom and hits the bedroom floor hard, before he scrambles towards the wall, struggling to pull himself back on his feet.

He’s not sure how long the panic attack lasts. He’s never had one before, and if he hadn’t of seen Ian manic before he would have thought he was dying.

It feels like forever before he snaps back to full consciousness, finally able to process what’s going on as he gulps in deep breaths of cool air.

Ian’s gone.

He’s never going to see him again. He’s never going to see anybody he knows, or home, _ever again_.

Mickey falls again as he reaches for his duffel bag, and unzipping it he grabs from it his jeans and his own shirt that are sitting at the very top. He dresses himself quickly, yanking on his boots last before he heads out into the unfamiliar night of Mexico.

He walks through the empty streets instead of driving, until he sees a seedy bar in the dark that he had passed earlier, dimly lit with a few individuals standing in the ally beside it.

He approaches them slowly, hoarsely saying, “I need…”

One of them steps out from the dark, an eye brow raised, holding a gun aimed directly at Mickey’s chest.

Mickey waves his hands slightly in the air, signifying he means no threat, before slowly reaching down into his jeans pocket and pulling out some cash to show them, hoping they won’t just fucking rob him.

He needs this.

The man lowers his gun, saying something in Spanish that sounds like a question.

“English?” Mickey asks back. The man shakes his head, but one of the others that was still hanging back now speaks up, “I know some English”.

“Great. I need whatever you have, coke…booze. And smokes, a lot of smokes. Please… I’ll pay good for them… please”. Mickey practically pants as he gets out his shaky request.

The guy doesn’t seem to be interested in robbing him, for now at least, and instead says something in Spanish to the other two men standing there. One of them yanks open the back door to the bar and Mickey and the other men wait and eye each other until he returns a minute or two later, carrying at box.

He tips the box and shows Mickey the bottles inside, and Mickey quickly nods at them. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it gets him fucking blackout drunk.

The other men toss some already opened cartons of cigarettes from their pockets into the box, and then lastly two tiny plastic bags filled with pure white powder.

“Good” Mickey nods, satisfied. He hands a thick wad of cash over the man who speaks English, who counts it slowly, but appears to be pleased that Mickey has paid generously, as promised.

Mickey balances the box on his knee and pops a cigarette into his mouth, sparking it with a lighter still in his pocket from earlier. He presses his thumb against it, it was Ian’s.

He nods his goodbye to the men, who let him leave while they watch in silence. He is lucky they had been local drug dealers, who were more interested in having repeat customers, and not members of one of the larger cartels, who would have without a doubt shot him and taken his money without a second thought.

He walks slowly back to his hotel, burning through two more cigarettes before he gets there, and finds room number 14 again.

Tonight, he’s gonna destroy every fucking brain cell that he can. Every cell that’s tinged with the memory of Ian.

It’s time to burn the bridge.

Mickey drops the box onto the small bed before yanking the items out of it one by one, and opening one bottle of cheap tequila right away he pours it down his throat mercilessly, waiting to feel the reassuring burn of the alcohol. His senses are somehow delayed, and it takes a while to feel it, but it finally begins to burn like an ugly fire in the pit of his stomach. His mind swims and he gulps, fighting vomit from forcing its way back upwards from his abused and empty stomach.

He opens one of the packets of coke with shaking hands and tips it out onto the plastic table in his room in jagged, careless lines. He snorts two of the lines and sniffs hard, feeling his nose twitch and burn from the harsh drug as it begins to affect him, and he goes back for more every ten minutes or so.

Mickey hasn’t been this fucked up in a very long time, and he wanders around the room in a daze, falling to the ground and laughing when his knees start to give out without warning every once and a while. He laughs even as his muscles begin to twitch jerk uncontrollably. He suddenly remembers Ian’s brother Carl telling him once that his mother Monica stood on the roof of their house, believing she was a bird. Believing she could fly.

He should try that, he thinks. He should try to fly.

His legs begin to flower with purple bruises from hitting the ground before he finally gives up and stays there, the good high being incredibly short lived. His mind is still shot with energy and his heart is beating uncomfortably fast against his heavy chest, as the ugly side of coke rears its head and resembles another brutal panic attack.

He curls into a ball on the ground and shakes violently until he falls asleep.

When Mickey’s burning and bloodshot blue eyes finally crack open again, countless hours later, the room is filled with a dim light coming in from behind the curtains.

He stands up slowly, shielding his sensitive eyes with a protective arm he approaches the window, and moves the curtains away in confusion.

The sun is going down outside, a brilliant orange light spilling across the landscape directly into Mickey’s barred window. Reminding him.

He still remembers Ian.

_Fuck._

He lowers himself to the ground beneath the window and sits, holding on to one of the bars for support. What the fuck was in that shit anyways? He’d never been passed out for this long before, regardless of what drugs he had mixed.

He notices his bladder is aching, and surprised he didn’t piss himself while he slept, heads to the bathroom to relieve the pressure. He leans against the wall while a steady stream of urine jets out of him, and he notices that he vomited at some point during the night into the shower. He turns on the water with disgust to wash it back down the drain.

Mickey’s motions are slow but sure, as he cleans himself and the room, up a bit. He changes into long shorts from his duffel bag that are made of a swimsuit like material, and a clean white tank top. Clothes he had saved for the beaches of Mexico.

He’s been thinking, and he’s made up his mind. He’s at peace with his decision.

In hindsight, maybe he should have known that Ian wouldn’t come. Deep down Mickey probably did know, but from the moment had Ian turned to him in the Jeep and said _let’s ride,_ he had just wanted to believe in it so badly.

In his happy ending.

All that stretched out ahead of him now was a life alone, in an unfamiliar country, unable to return to everything he had ever loved or cared about.

And Mickey’s tired of fighting. He’s been fighting his entire fucking life. And for what? To end up alone.

Mickey combs his dark hair, using a large shard of broken mirror still stuck to the wall to check his reflection, and then brushes his teeth, his saliva tinged with blood from his lip that he must have split the night before.

He grabs his duffel bag, after repacking it, and leaves the shitty hotel room without looking back. Before he reaches the station wagon outside he hears someone yelling at him.

“Hey! _You_! White man!”

Mickey turns back towards the sound, blinking uncertainly at the angry voice.

It’s the small Mexican man that had been sitting in the hotel office the other day, “You too loud last night! Quiet or go!” He then adds something in Spanish that Mickey doesn’t understand.

Mickey raises a hand, “Calm the fuck down alright? I’m leaving. You won’t see me again”.

The guy says something else to him in Spanish, no doubt an insult, as he spits the words angrily to the ground as he delivers them.

Mickey throws himself into the station wagon and flips the guy off before he slams the door shut. He drives with purpose to the same bar he found the night before and parks outside of it, in direct view of its side alley.

It’s currently empty, so he kills the engine and waits. He knows there’s nothing left to do. Drugs and booze would only fuck him up more, and make this fucking hell last longer, and he doesn’t want that. He wants a peace that they can only give him for a few hours, and it’ll never be enough.  

Mickey finally sees the same guys appear out of the back door of the bar who he had bought his drugs and alcohol from the previous night, so he exits the car, approaching them more confidently this time.

They watch him advance from behind drifting clouds of weed and cigarette smoke.

 “You again?” the English speaking one says, hocking a large glob of dark saliva to the ground.

Mickey nods, “I need something else from you guys. Two things actually”.

The Mexican cocks his head, “If you got the money…”

Mickey flashes another small stack of bills and the man nods while the others watch with renewed interest, “Well, what else you need esé?”

“Whiskey, good fucking whiskey alright? No more shitty tequila. And a handgun”.

The guy considers him for a moment, and then glances behind him in interest, “That your car?”

Mickey looks back at the station wagon, and then at the man in front of him.

“It’s yours”.

He doesn’t need it anymore.


	14. Hiraeth

Mickey tucks the handgun into the waistband of his shorts and pulls his white tank top back down over it, concealing the weapon. 

“Where’s the nearest beach?” he asks, taking the bottle of whiskey the Mexican hands him. Mickey inspects it.

Aged 20 years. Appropriate, in a sick sort of way.

He watches as one of the men sizes up the station wagon, most likely trying to guess how much he could sell it for.

The English speaker laughs at his question, “You in Monterrey gringo, no beaches near here”.

Mickey grits his teeth, more bitter disappointment flooding through him as yet another wrench is thrown into his plans, “Fuck”.

What the fuck was he supposed to do now? He didn’t even have a fucking car anymore. Leave it to Mickey Milkovich to fuck up his own planned death.

“ _Playa_?”

One of the other men, who was apparently listening to the conversation, comes over and says something in Spanish, tapping his friend on the arm and gesturing at Mickey, who is still standing there dejectedly. Then he butchers the word out himself in English, “Bea-ch?”

“Yes, _playa_ , beach!” Mickey nods at him energetically, hoping the man has some kind of solution to his problem.

The two of them speak in Spanish for a minute or so, while Mickey’s eyes dart back and forth between them, desperately trying to understand in some way what they are saying.

The English speaker looks at him, “It’s your lucky fucking day man. Juan Manuel and Gerardo here are doing a run down by _Punta Monterrey_ , transferring coke to be sold to some of the rich fucks on the resorts there. I ain’t going, and neither speak a word of English, but they’ll fit you in the back of the van for $200”.

Mickey continues to bob his head in agreement, finally something was going his way… “Alright, alright, when are we going?”

He looks back at Juan Manuel, “¿Cuándo te vas?”

“Media hora”.

He shrugs as he translates the man’s response for Mickey, “Half hour?” “How far is it?” Mickey asks, pulling out more cash from the now thinning bundle.

“Thirteen hours give or take” he answers, watching as Juan Manuel reaches out to take the bills Mickey is offering towards him. Mickey yanks his arm back, “ _Thirteen fucking hours?_ Are you fucking kidding me? I need to be there like, now!”

“It’s that or a plane motherfucker”.

The English speaker, who’s name he doesn’t know and probably never will, looks at Mickey with a mixture of both curiosity and confusion at his impatience.

Mickey sighs in frustration, knowing there is no way he can risk any type of airport security right now. Not while he’s packing especially. And he’s not gonna try and find another gun when he gets there, he’s running out of both money and items to barter with…

Shortly after Mickey reluctantly agrees to the only viable form of transportation he currently has, a filthy white van pulls into the lot where they had made their deal.

He swallows the blue gel pill that Gerardo had held out when he asked the English speaker if they had anything to keep him chilled out for the trip. He keeps silently telling himself he will be there, and it will be over, soon enough.

Mickey climbs into the empty back of the van, with the front seats now fully occupied by the driver, Gerardo, and Juan Manuel. He leans against the side of the van’s wall uncomfortably as they pull away from the seedy bar and hit the road, the two large crates jammed into back of the van greatly limiting his options of where to sit.

As he is jostled by every single movement of the van, he starts to think back to the night he had escaped from prison.

It wasn’t long ago... a week tops. But it feels like a lifetime ago.

And here he is again, escaping from something much worse.

His head starts to feel very heavy, and his eyes start to droop about an hour later, and he realizes all he had paid Gerardo ten dollars for was a fucking sleeping pill, but it will have to fucking do. He was already completely exhausted without realizing it, still suffering from his actions of the night before.

He curls into an awkward ball on the dirty and hard floor of the van, and passes out hard by the time they pass Saltillo, now unconsciously moving across Mexico with no option other than to trust three unfamiliar Mexican drug dealers, to get him to the beach.

Mickey starts to dream as he lays unconscious in the back of the white van, and he is back in Chicago.

 

He’s standing outside of the Gallagher house. It’s nighttime, pitch black outside, and it’s freezing cold. It’s the dead of winter, and pure white snow delicately blankets the ground where he stands.

Mickey looks through the living room window as he shivers in the cold wind that penetrates right through his winter jacket, chilling him to the bone. 

He sees the Gallagher family inside, gathered around the living room, laughing and watching a movie together, hot cups of cider and chocolate in their hands. Their cheeks are flushed with happiness.

And there’s Ian. Sitting inside. Right there. Surrounded by his family.

Mickey walks up the old porch steps, peeling and weak from years of thudding footsteps, and knocks on the front door, his knuckles red and raw from the harsh winter air.

Ian answers the door, and looks surprised to see him standing there.

“Mickey? What are you doing here?”

“Ian…” Mickey’s mouth opens and then closes again as he stares at him, feeling a glowing warmth emanating from the Gallagher home, towards where he stands, alone in the cold.

“Can I…can I please come in?” he asks, looking at Ian through eyes filled with tears. He thought he’d never see him again.

Ian smiles back at him with kindness in his green eyes, “Sure Mick”.

He brings Mickey inside of the warm house, and Ian’s siblings all affectionately wave hello to him as he enters. No one appears concerned by Mickey’s eyes, still brimming with tears. They actually seem happy that he is there, with them. It feels nice…

“You’re freezing Mick” Ian then says softly, touching Mickey’s cold cheek in concern, “Come up to bed with me”.

Mickey follows him up the stairs and into his familiar bedroom wordlessly. Ian lays down in the small bed first, and then beckons Mickey over with his arms, “C’mere”.

Mickey slowly approaches the bed, and then shifts out of his winter jacket, dropping it to the floor. He turns and rolls himself onto the bed gently, his back pressing against Ian’s chest. Ian pulls him in close against his warm body, and then covers them with a heavy blanket.

Mickey’s cold skin slowly thaws against Ian’s warmth, and he cries weakly into the pillow beneath his face, not understanding what’s happening as Ian holds him. What’s real, what’s not.

He feels so weak, and so lost, _“_ I love you Ian _”_ he croaks. That much he is sure of.

He feels Ian kiss the back of his head tenderly, and then his neck. He grips Mickey’s hand tightly with his own, squeezing it to give him strength.

“I love you too Mickey”.

They lay there for what feels like a very long time, silently holding each other. Whatever this is, Mickey doesn’t want it to end, ever.

He isn’t sure how much time has passed before he then feels an abrupt push on his shoulder, and he looks back at Ian in confusion.

“You can’t stay here Mickey, you know that, right?” Ian looks at him through tender and loving eyes, asking the question gently.

Mickey feels another push, even though Ian hasn’t moved this time. “I don’t want to go….”

Ian looks at him sadly, “I know, I don’t want you to leave either. But you _have to_ ”.

Another push and Mickey startles into consciousness, gasping loudly as he looks upwards and sees a tanned face above his own, just vaguely familiar, the man prodding him awake.

Juan Manuel.

He looks at Mickey’s startled blue eyes as they dart around the van, awareness rapidly returning to him, noticing that his cheeks are streaked with drying tears. “ _Punta Monterrey”_ Juan Manuel says, gently.

Mickey sits up quickly, “We’re here?”

The man doesn’t understand his question, but slides open the van door roughly, and Mickey steps out of the van beside him into their new surroundings. It’s now into the very early hours of a still dark morning.

Juan Manuel points down the road in a specific direction, thickly peppered with palm trees and other tropical plants, it appears to be an offbeat one. “ _Playa_ …beach. _Donde el oceano es_ ”.

Mickey gulps and nods, taking his duffle bag out from the back of the van. He knows Juan Manuel won’t understand, but he feels the need to say it anyways.

 “…Thanks”.

But maybe he does understand, because he solemnly nods before turning away from Mickey and getting back in the van. The door slams shut, and the men drive away, heading further in the opposite direction from Mickey. Towards heavily populated resorts.

Mickey readjusts the duffle bag on his shoulder, and walks down the abandoned road for about ten minutes before he reaches a thick group of trees, making it near impossible to continue forwards easily on the earthen path.

He pauses only briefly, and then pushes through them calmly as he continues forward, stumbling slightly over several rocks and tree trunks as he does. He is barely able to see with the dim natural light, the night sky only just beginning to lift as morning considers its slow approach.

Mickey finally breaks through the thick trees, and into his view comes an expanse of a wide and stunningly beautiful private beach…. and the endless ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dream sequence was written loosely based around the song “Warning Sign” by Coldplay. Kind of meant to signify not only how alone and scared Mickey felt, but what the Gallaghers had always signified to him. Warmth, safety, a home he had never known. Love.   
> ‘Hiraeth’ (also the name of a Shameless episode) is a homesickness for a place you can never return to, and a grief for the lost places of your past. Pretty fitting.


	15. Elegy to the Void

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Give Chevrotain- Dawn Golden a listen to while you read this

Mickey slowly sinks to his knees at the sight of it all, and he fills his hands with the white sand around his legs before gripping them into fists, slowly letting the grains trickle back out as he looks at the ocean in front of him, and the blue water lapping up against the sand. He eventually takes off his boots and then stands, walking closer towards the water in bare feet.

Mickey leaves his boots back by the trees. He won’t need them anymore.

The water rushes up to meet him once he reaches its edge, as if he is a dearly missed friend, returning after a very long time away. Mickey lets the cool ocean water lap against his feet and then pull back again, several times, before he returns to where he left his duffle bag on the white sand, half way between the edge of the trees, and waters edge.

He drops back down into the soft sand, landing beside his bag. After unzipping the duffel’s smaller outer compartment, he pulls out it’s sole content.

The bottle of fine malt whiskey, aged 20 years. Mickey unscrews the cap, and rests his elbows on his knees before he takes his first sip.

He will make it last until sunrise. Mickey wants to be around to see that. Like he had imagined doing so many fucking times, just in a very different way before.

Mickey purposely doesn’t look at the empty place beside him in the sand, knowing he could easily picture him stretched out there, enjoying the view.

Until sunrise, he wants to enjoy the fine whiskey in his hand, his very last bottle, and think back over his short life, and the people in it.

Everyone he’s lost, his elegy to the void.

He thinks of his little sister Mandy first… so much like him in so many ways. Protective, angry, scared… loyal until the very end if she loved you. Couldn’t help herself from falling for a fucking Gallagher either, like they were some fatal weakness in the Milkovich genes, their Achilles heel. He always hated himself for not being able to protect her.... from heartbreak, from Kenyatta, from their dad. From herself.

Wherever you are now Mandy, he thinks, I hope that you’re safe, and finally happy. He holds his bottle up for his little sister, and takes a sip. It’s smooth, travelling down his throat with a comforting burn.

He thinks of Svetlana next. The Russian sex worker, the wife he never wanted. But someone he still somehow managed to build a strange sort of family with, a few years ago with Ian, with Yevgeny…

Yevgeny, Mickey had never really sorted out his feelings towards the kid. Never knowing if he was his son, or his fucking half brother. But it didn’t really matter though, in the end, because he still ended up caring about the little blonde boy whether he wanted to or not.

He would never get to see him grow up.

Mickey licks his lips and takes another two sips of whiskey, one for each of them.

His mind then unintentionally drifts towards Terry, his father. His miserable, violent, prick of a dad.

Mickey can’t believe there was a time he actually cared so much about what he thought.

He takes a swig from the bottle, and with his lips still wrapped around it says, “ _Fuck you Terry_ ”.

The sky is beginning to bloom with more light now, the sunrise signalling that it will be here soon.

So he thinks about his time in prison, and Aurora’s gentle face comes to his mind next. He smiles fondly at the sight. She was one the first people in Mickey’s entire life to ever give him a fucking break. He’d be forever grateful for that.

Another sip, and he thinks of his temporary business partners, Kev and V, who owned the Alibi. You know, they weren’t so bad.

 _“Nobody cares who you bang Mickey_ ”.

Kev had always seemed to know when Mickey was having a rough day, and he’d sometimes wordlessly push him a glass of beer or a shot of whiskey on the house, always Mickey’s favorite kind. Veronica and him had seemed like an unstoppable team.

Even though he would never admit it to them, Mickey admired that. He thinks that if he had gotten the chance, they could have been friends someday, maybe.

He takes a drink for each of them, his bottle now half empty as he watches the night sky lighten into an early morning one, delicate blues painted into the sky above him just before the sun comes up.

He listens to the sound of the ocean’s waves hitting the shore.

And then he thinks of the Gallaghers.

_The family that could have been._

Frank, the fuckup that could have ruined it all for Ian and Mickey, but didn’t. He had accepted his son Ian for who he was, without a single moment of judgement. Mickey’s kinda glad now that he didn’t end up killing the guy, all those years ago.

He thinks of the strong matriarch of the home, Fiona, who never really seemed to believe in Mickey. Never believed that he wouldn’t abandon her brother, even as he had helped to take care of him in his darkest days. Maybe because she’d been abandoned herself so many times. He guesses he can’t blame her for that.

And Debbie, the spunky redhead that had begun to feel like another little sister to him. She cared about Ian the way he did, fiercely, and was the only other person who was never ready to give up worrying about where Ian was, or to hurt anyone that had harmed him. She’d be a good mom some day, Mickey thinks.

And then there’s the troublemaker, Carl, somewhat like Mickey in his own right. Funny little shit too. Mickey had liked him, because Carl had always seemed to have some sort of unspoken respect for him.  And you know what else? He seemed to get Mickey and Ian being together. He had never doubted Mickey’s love for his brother.

Mickey thinks next of the cute little black kid that would always stare at him from across the table, Liam. He was a quiet kid, but the kind of kid that everyone just fucking loved. Hell, even Mickey ended up giving more than a shit about him when he lived there.

And then there’s Lip, the arrogant, smart asshole who could have had it all. Gone to college, and gotten out of the South Side cycle. But maybe he still will some day. Maybe he’ll find his way back to Mickey’s sister, Mandy, who is probably the only girl that’s ever truly loved him, for who he really was.

Maybe a Gallagher and a Milkovich can have a happy ending.

 _The family that could have been_.

As the brilliant deep orange sunrise begins to spill across the early morning sky, Mickey is reminded of the only Gallagher left, the one who he could never forget.

The only person he’s ever truly loved, ever could love.

Ian Gallagher.

There were times they hated each other.

2 a.m. fights where they tried to end things, even though neither of them wanted to. There was screaming, and tears, and sometimes even blood. But no, not really…not hate. They loved. Because at the end of the day, it didn’t matter how pissed off they were at each other, they always ended up back in eachothers arms.

And maybe Mickey was always the first one to apologize, and maybe he was the first one to say ‘I love you’. But whether Ian would admit it or not, he always cared. Even while Mickey was in prison. About him, and about them.

But that’s gone now, and so are they.

And Mickey can’t fucking stand the thought that they will never have another 2 a.m. screaming match that ends with rough kissing. Or that they’ll get to the plans and promises they made to each other. Ian will never make him laugh until his stomach hurts, or tickle him until he punches him, ever again. And it fucking hurts.

They will never grow together again, and the idea of it breaks his heart.

Tears sting his eyes but he doesn’t fight them this time, letting the fat droplets roll down his cheeks as he watches the captivating sunrise. He wishes there was a way to remember every single moment that they had ever shared together, from the very beginning, right to the fucking heartbreaking end.

There’s just no way to summarize what Ian was to him, just as he had said once, back in prison, _he’s everything._

As he drains the last of the whiskey from his bottle, Mickey allows himself to wonder for one very last time where Ian is now, what he’s doing.

He hopes that he’s safe. And that he’s happy. With whatever he chooses to do.

Mickey tosses the empty bottle to the ground and stretches across the sand, now warming in the early morning sunshine, to reach towards his duffle bag.

His eyes are blurring. Not because he’s scared to die, or because he doesn’t want to. It just really fucking hurts, all of this, and he doesn’t know what else to do anymore. 

He shoves his hand inside the duffle bag, feeling around, but he can’t find the handgun among the various items of clothing.

Mickey feels a burst of frustration and suddenly stands up, dumping all of the contents roughly from the duffle bag out onto the sand so he can find the gun.

The handgun bounces out among everything else, from its hiding place inside of a balled-up shirt, and hits the sand by his feet.

He reaches down to grab the gun, and cocks it, undoing the safety.

Mickey holds the gun in his hand, feeling so heavy as he looks out across the breathtaking sky once more, the beach in front of him, and the endless body of water. He lets out a deep and shaky breath as he lifts the gun to the side of his head.

“ _Fuck…”_ he whispers.

Before he pulls the trigger, he sees something shining slightly in the sand.

It’s reflecting dully off of the morning light, and he feels strangely drawn towards it. He hesitates for a moment, and decides to hold off pulling the trigger.

Mickey slowly crouches to see what it is, placing the gun down on the sand beside himself as he grabs the small partially hidden object with his fingers from the sand.

…It’s the copper heart.

The one he made in prison, for Ian, with both of their names scratched into it, one on either side. Something for him to carry, the way Mickey carried the tattoo of Ian’s name over his heart.

Mickey looks at it thoughtfully, resting in the palm of his outstretched hand. It’s heavier than he remembered.

He can’t remember if he had put it in his duffle bag before he left Chicago that last day. Maybe Alejandro had done it for him when he was packing their bags.

But Mickey had meant to give it to Ian, and he had completely forgotten to.

His mind suddenly violently flashes back to when he was still in prison, talking to Dr. Howard about losing Ian.

_Mickey feels his shoulders slump slightly. “He’s my fucking soulmate, man. All that shit. What do I have to do to get him back? How am I supposed to do that while I’m fucking stuck in here?”_

_Dr. Howard looks at him sympathetically, and for once the expression doesn’t anger Mickey like it usually does when it’s directed at him._

_“I can’t answer that for him Mickey, I really don’t know”._

_“But there’s fucking hope, right?” Mickey demands, like this guy has all the fucking answers and just won’t share them._

_“Of course. There’s always hope Mickey, and you can hold onto that. That’s yours to keep. People come apart for half a lifetime and still find their ways back to each other if they both want to.  But in the mean time, if its what Ian wants, you have to let him go.”_

Mickey looks down at the small copper object in his hands, and traces Ian’s name with his tattooed finger, a new feeling dawning on him even as the tears continue to run.

He knows what he wants.

He just has to wait.

Wait for Ian to _want_ to come and find his way back to him. And he believes that day, whether or not he has to wait half a lifetime for it, will come. Because no one will ever love Ian like he does.

And in the mean time?

Mickey looks up at brilliant morning sky, and the turquoise blue water lapping against the white sand in front of him, and he murmurs,

“I’ll fucking wait for you Ian… I’ll wait for you. Where the ocean is”.          

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s one song that if this was a scene in the show, I could picture playing. It’s called Chevrotain, by Dawn Golden. There’s no words, just music and the sound of waves in the background, and it’s beautiful but sad. Part of Mickey’s thoughts near the end are not entirely my own writing, there was a quote on a pic of IG (poemsporn_) by vodkaawaves and it completely reminded me of them so I wanted to include it, even though I did edit it here and there. 
> 
> There’s always a chance I’ll pick up from this fic again at some point, but I don’t see it happening directly any time soon. Anyways I guess that’s it for now, to those of you that stuck through this heavy fic with me, thank you ❤


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